


Rex

by Dandyton_Lady



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, F/M, Romance, Steam Powered Giraffe (Band)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2020-10-06 23:33:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 62,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20515322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandyton_Lady/pseuds/Dandyton_Lady
Summary: The tale of Rex Marksley, but not as you've heard it.If you're unfamiliar, please listen to the following before reading.  It will be all the background you need.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSOJpi0f9qs





	1. Chapter 1

The wind pierced his skin like a thousand knives. Even the slightest movement was agony, but he welcomed the pain. Numbness was far more dangerous. Beneath him, the horse shuddered and quaked with shivering, up to its belly in the raging drifts of snow. The plains were, in season, beautiful vistas with nothing to disturb the eye’s view of miles and miles of rolling grasslands. In winter, that meant few trees to break the ungodly winds and snow of the blizzards. The sun had already begun to set, there was no hope if he did not find some kind of shelter before darkness overtook them. His eyes mere slits as he squinted through the wind-blown torrent of snowflake clusters so large he could feel them smacking against him even through his clothing. There they would, like their brethren before them, melt just enough to cling to the cloth and harden into ice with the next arctic blast of wind until he crackled with every movement. 

Suddenly, his horse’s head whipped upward and to the right, nearly tearing the reins from his frozen fingers. It fairly lept upward and Rex felt the animal’s muscles now concentrating on pushing itself off toward the west, its wild eyes rolling, its nostrils throwing up clouds of steam. All Rex could do was clench his fingers tighter around the leather straps, pins and needles pain shooting up from those frozen digits. He could see nothing but a white whirl of snow turning red with the setting sun, that glow fading into darkness far too soon. The feared numbness had invaded his feet and legs already, his hands and face too. Rex closed his eyes, feeling the flakes sticking to his lashes, soft as tiny angel kisses. Soon all the pain would ebb and he’d move on to whatever world lay beyond this one. He hoped it had plains to ride across. Broad vistas of wildflower speckled hills cut through with a crystal blue serpentine river. He felt still. The sound of the wind faded and another rose to take its place. A rustling, crunching sound echoed in his ears, and though it pained him, he forced his eyes to open.

They were half underground. A barn of sorts had been built above it, but he could have reached up and touched the roof if he wished. The sod-hole was then filled with hay and straw. There was only a small door, and it was hung with a heavy blanket to block much of the wind, but it couldn’t block the smell of food from his starving horse. He’d followed his nose and saved them! Rex sat in the saddle for several minutes, unable to move, the radiating warmth of the straw surrounding them kept the little shelter civil for animals, but he figured that if there was a barn, there had to be a house, and it would be warmer still. A place he could rest and perhaps find dry clothes and food. It took a long time to make his body obey, and every movement was torture, but he forced himself to dismount, to tie the horse’s reins in a spot where it was dry and warm, to assure it had plenty of food and even a pan of snow, which would melt in time before he pushed through the stiff blanket and forced himself back out into the now pitch-black storm. 

He could not see, so he shouted as he walked. He got no answer, but he could hear his voice’s echo change if he walked too far from the barn’s wall. When that ended, he had only hope to guide him as he moved forward, the wind trying hard to push him over. He stumbled twice but pressed on. The wind pushed harder, as if furious he dared to remain upright. He fell again, striking his shoulder hard against a water pump. Though it hurt like hell, it made him grin inwardly. The water pump was always close to the house. Hands before him, he cried out a greeting over and over as he walked, feeling his way. 

“Hello?! HELLO?!” His voice was a sharp bark through chattering teeth. At last, his shin struck a step and his hands, a moment later, hit the latch of a door. He banged against it, hammering with fists that seemed to be made of glass that shattered with every strike until they were made of jagged, piercing shards beneath the skin. He was desperate. Shaking fingers pulled his knife and slid it through the seam between frame and door. He pushed it upward until he felt the blade hit the latch. A small pang of guilt for breaking in was crushed by the need to get out of this weather as he pushed upward and felt the latch give a moment before the door swung open and he all but fell through it. The snow whirled and danced around him as he pushed against the wind, shoving the door shut and dropping the latch back into place. 

The room was dark and cold, he could hear only the ragged rushing of his own breath as he panted from pain and effort, shuddering uncontrollably. He knew he had to keep moving if he wanted to live. The next half hour was done as robotically as one of those temperance automatons he’d seen outside the State Fair that one time. He took stock of his surroundings. It was a cabin, small, but well made. There was only the one room it seemed, and a small attic judging by the ladder. In the center of the north wall, there was a large pot-bellied stove, and that became the church of his most adamant worship. He found wood in a stack beside it, not much, but no doubt there was a woodpile outside he could find once the sun rose. His hands shook so bad he couldn’t even strike a match, breaking three before he managed to ignite one. A shivering flame nibbled at the dry bits of bark which fed it to grow. When the fire was strong enough, Rex added the bigger logs and simply knelt in the wave of heat that poured out. 

As he knelt there, the numbness turning into a terrible, throbbing sting of blood trying to push itself through frost-bitten flesh, he realized his clothes were more a burden than a help. He pulled off his gloves, his coat, his scarf, his boots, his woolen socks sodden and dripping with ice water. His denim trousers, his shirt, even his union suit was soaked with the melted remains of the blizzard. With the fire lit, he could see around the room. There were a table and chairs off to one side, a rocking chair and what must have been the mantel to a very large fireplace, now a stone wall on the western side of the cabin by the ladder leading up to the loft. In a far corner, there was a cot and a large chest. At the corner of the chest, something hung down, a square of bright fabric edged in yellow. He stood and crept closer, knowing even before he touched it that it was a quilt. He pulled it out and wrapped himself in it, heedless of anything else that might have been disturbed. He noticed another door, but it was still cold in the far corners of the cabin, so he stumbled back to the woodstove where he dropped down to defrost. As the pain of the frozen skin began to fade, it was replaced by utter and undeniable exhaustion. He feared he’d fall into the stove if he didn’t move, but his body wouldn’t listen and he slumped over sideways onto the hard planks of the floor, asleep before his head even reached the ground.

** ~@~ ~@~ ~@~ ~@~**

Steam poured upward as the iron horse pushed through the darkness. In this instance, it meant not a railroad locomotive, but an actual horse of iron. Well, steel and copper as well. It moved slowly, but it didn’t care about the snow piled up against its metal body. Beneath, the continuous track rolled unfalteringly. At the rear was a wagon on flat skids like skis that slid over the wet earth left by the steam-powered machine’s passing. At the head of the wagon, a figure cloaked in heavy furs pulled levers and pressed pedals to keep the machine moving forward. Now and again, a glint of brass as a mittened hand lifted up a compass, following that unerring needle’s guidance.

The snow had been brutal, but it was lessening now that the sun had gone down, and the smooth untouched snow banks were almost pretty. It was then that the ruts were noted. They cut across willy-nilly, not yet fully filled by the tumbling flakes. A wide swath of a single rider lead along, generally, the same path the compass indicated. The smell of wood smoke tinged the air, and the spiraling coil of it stood out in the winter night. The compass was tucked away, and a rifle was taken up in its place.


	2. Chapter 2

Rex drew in a deeper breath. He had been dreaming, but he could feel sleep slipping away. He wanted to cling to the dream even as he found himself unable to remember just exactly what it had been. He made to rise but found he could not lift his shoulders. Attempts to move his arms were likewise failures. This woke him instantly. Thrashing faintly, then with greater vigor, he whipped his head about, trying to discern what was going on. Panic wouldn’t do him any good. Closing his eyes, he forced himself to draw a deep breath and let it go as he ran through things logically. He was still in the cabin he had broken into the night before. It was morning, or perhaps even early afternoon judging by the amount of sun that was streaming through the windows. He was on the cot that had been too far from the fire to be tempting then, though now it was quite warm. He was still wrapped within the quilt like a bunting babe. His struggles should have freed him from such a simple binding but it was more than that. He opened his eyes and lifted his head much as he could. He could see, vivid against the multi-colored blocks of the quilt, bands of brown cloth about a hand’s width across. One across his shoulders, his ribs, his waist, his thighs, just below his kneecaps, and across the top of his ankles, tied tight to the cot’s frame on either side. As he shifted about, he could tell one thing more. Beneath the blanket, he was still naked. That made him feel, if possible, more helpless. 

A shadow passed over the window and he had only a moment to decide what to do. He chose to feign sleep, keeping one eye open just a crack. A shape of black fur and white ice pushed through the door, shaking off the snow at the door before it was closed and latched securely. Rex couldn’t stop himself from opening his eyes to fully take in the sight. Viewed properly, it was obviously just a man. Probably the one who owned the cabin. He hoped. It wasn’t as if Rex Marksley was a wanted man, but he’d already made a bit of a name for himself as a hired gun, though always on the side of the downtrodden. He had a code after all. Part of that code was to speak without fear. He cleared his throat to ensure that his captor knew he was awake. “Why am I being…” 

His words were cut off by the dark figure’s quick draw of a rifle from, he supposed, a spot beside the door. The long barrel glinted as it was fixed upon him, the man creeping closer like a hunter at the end of a blood trail come to deliver the killing blow. After a moment of tension, the rifle lowered slowly. “I think I am the one who should be asking the questions.” Rex had only a moment to register that the voice was female before the hood was pushed back and the balaclava pulled down. The woman’s cheeks and nose were ruddy with cold, but her eyes were as blue and chill as the world outside now was. Her hair a wild tumble of curls ranging from soft caramel brown to wheat gold that framed her face and brushed at her shoulders. “Let’s start with what were you doing in my father’s cabin?” Her mouth was a line of determination, her brows lifted in curiosity. 

“Um…” he was again aware of several things at once and his brain raced to process them all. He was tied up. Naked. He supposed she had done it and he felt a blush of embarrassment that was overcome with a rush of indignation that she’d tied him up like this. Maybe her father had. That was somehow both better and worse. He licked at his dry lips, trying to sound casual in the face of being tied down, naked, in front of a woman with a rifle pointed at him. “I was on my way to Tarrleton. The storm blew up faster than I figured it was going to. Blew the map away and I got lost.” He couldn’t tell if she was moved at all by his story, but she hadn’t shot yet, so that was a fairly good sign. “It started to get dark. I thought that was it, honestly. Thankfully my horse must have smelled out your barn and I …” 

“Fine animal. Just came back from checking on it. It’s doing fine.” 

Simultaneously reassured and guilty, as he hadn’t even given the animal’s health a thought as he warmed himself up last night. “Good.” He was parched and had to clear his throat. “Ahem, um… so we were in the barn, the horse and me and I figured ‘where there’s a barn, there’s a house’ and I was so cold and I suppose I should have just stayed there with the horse.” He had an itch on his chin and instinctively tried to scratch it, reminding him needlessly that he was trussed up. “By the time I found the house I was afraid I couldn’t find my way back to the barn. I was freezing. Nobody answered when I knocked and it was life or death. I had to get out of the blizzard.” 

“Hmm.” She twisted her mouth in a look of pensive consideration, and he wasn’t sure what was going on in her head. Thankfully, she turned and walked away, taking the rifle and hanging it back beside the door. “I suppose I can’t blame you for just seeking shelter in a storm, even if it was rude as hell.” She looked back over her shoulder as she smirked at him. The heavy coat of wool and fur sloughed off and hung on a peg behind the stove. He could see more of her now. Though she’d looked very large in the coat, underneath she was a rather petite woman. She wore a pair of doeskin trousers tucked into knee-high boots and no doubt several layers of shirts which obscured most of her figure, but she was no doubt, female. She had a shape built by work and a dancer’s poise as she moved about the room. After a minute or so, she dug a dipper of water out of a bucket near the door and poured it out into a tin cup. As she approached him, her other hand at her waist pulled a very nasty-looking skinning knife from her belt, the light catching on the edge as she shifted the handle in her palm. “You don’t move.” She had a look in her eyes as she stood over him that made him damn sure she would have no qualms about sticking him with it. 

Very slowly, she sank to a crouch beside him, her eyes on his. Close as she was now, he could see little freckles under the snow-pinked nose and cheeks. Her eyes were luminous and framed by dark lashes that still held the dampness of melted ice. He stared back, trying to convey his agreement with her command without speaking. With a single tug of the blade under the fabric, she cut through the cloth strip over his shoulders then to the one over his ribs before she rose and stepped back in a single elegant motion that put her out of his reach. Standing, she offered down the cup. 

Rex wriggled his hands free of the strap over his waist with a bit of effort, then wriggled out of the quilt’s tight grip as well, leaving him bare-chested as he shifted to sit up. He couldn’t sit up fully, but he could raise up to one elbow. “Thank you.” His long fingers took hold of the cup and brought it to his lips. as he drank the contents of the cup down. He gasped inwardly at how cold it was, trickles slipping free of his lips ran down his neck and over his chest, but he didn’t stop until the cup was drained. Mildly breathless, he nodded. “Thank you again, Ma’am.” He thought it best to be polite after all, the cup offered back out to her. She’d averted her gaze from his bare chest, a hint of a pink he doubted came from cold had taken hold of her cheek as well. He had been told he was handsome. He didn’t see it himself of course, but the ladies seemed to think so. Wouldn’t hurt to attempt a little charm on this one, even if she looked just as willing to skin him as to get him more water. “I am sorry for invading your home, Ma’am. I don’t have much to repay your kindness with, but I do promise to try to redeem m’self, if allowed.” Using his most smooth voice, the one that often made girls at the general store go into fits of tittering when he tipped his hat and purred ‘ladies’ at them. 

Those shy blues turned back to him and he saw something intelligent and cunning. This was no silly maid to be driven to flutters of the fan by a smooth-talking stranger. She smiled in a way that made Rex very nervous as she walked back toward the stove. “I suppose you’re wondering where your clothes are.” 

He hadn’t been until that moment. “Well, yes ma’am, I am, now that you mention it.” A feeling of dread building in the pit of his stomach.

“They’re safe, don’t worry. I folded them all and put them into a crate, wrapped it in oilskin and hid it in one of the outbuildings.” She chuckled as she put the cup back on its hook by the bucket. “You could, I suppose, kill me and steal my clothes. Skinny as you are, they might even go around. Trouble is, they won’t cover much of those long legs.” She sat and tugged off the fur-edged boots and then held them up. “And I’m damned well sure you won’t get very far in boots this small. Barefoot and half-naked is not wise in weather like we get around these parts. So, your only option is to be civil and earn them back.” In her stocking feet she moved back toward him, the knife in her hand flipped and caught idly as she moved. Again he was aware of the elegance in even her simplest motion. She reminded him of a feline stalking a mouse. He ought to have felt angry, even nervous when he was still half bound down and there was a person with a knife standing over him, but what he felt as he looked up at her wasn’t close to either of those. After a moment’s more contemplation she bent and cut the strips at his feet, his knees and his thighs. “Until you do, you can consider that quilt yours to use.” She cut the last strip even as she moved again out of his reach with that coiled leonine grace. She slid the knife into its sheath and motioned to the door at the back of the room he’d noticed the night before. “Go on. I’ll make us something to eat.” 

Watching her walk away, Rex was still for several seconds. It wasn’t until she set the cast iron skillet onto the stove and began laying out strips of bacon that he felt safe to move. It wasn’t fear of her, per se, but an awareness that in his work getting out of the tightly wrapped quilt, he would likely reveal more than was polite in front of a lady. Gingerly he worked the blanket loose enough to sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the cot. That motion alone was enough to punctuate how long he’d been in the saddle. Every muscle ached, his bones felt as heavy as iron as he stood up and made his way to the door and through. 

The small room was built much more recently than the cabin itself. Perhaps six feet square, it had a single window on one side, a door opposite the one through which he’d entered, and the other wall was occupied by a large stone fireplace in which there was a fire already lit. The floor was covered with planks of wood that, when he stepped down, had just the barest fraction of give as if they floated above the ground rather than resting on it. He noticed the door behind him locked, and so he threw the latch and let the quilt slip a bit, bunching it around his waist as he limped toward the fire. In front of it, a small tin bathtub was half full, the water heated by the fire’s proximity. At the side of the fireplace was a large barrel containing water, he reasoned, if the dipper at the side and the kettle perched atop it could be trusted as clues. A washstand sat by the door he’d entered through, a pitcher in the basin, clean towel, and strop, and after inspecting the drawer beneath it, a shaving kit, hairbrush, and comb. The only other item of furniture in the room was a three-legged stool in the far corner. He’d check the other door first though. 

Upon touching the latch, he knew this door lead outside. Wrapping the quilt more tightly around himself, he opened the door, unsure what he hoped to see. Behind the door was a long path of wooden planks that lead several yards away to the tell-tale crescent moon decorated door of an outhouse. Iron pipes ran down from the cabin to the outhouse and on it were hung heavy canvas walls to keep out the snow. It was actually a fairly ingenious way to make such necessary trips more tolerable. Had to hand it to the man who’d come up with the idea. The ground was icy under his bare feet, but nature was calling loudly. He bit back a decidedly unmanly squeal of shock when he broke through an ice-coated puddle on one of the wooden planks, shocking his system with both its coldness and its jagged edge. Mincing like a lady being chased by a mouse he scampered back into the warmth of the bathing room and shut the door tight. The door’s edge was edged with a thin wedge of cork that ensured it sealed and kept out the cold surprisingly well. Again, he had to admit he was impressed by whoever had built this addition. Shuddering, he strode to the half-full bath and stepped inside, his chilled feet soothed and warmed as he held the quilt up around his knees to keep it from dipping in the water. 

As his feet defrosted, he turned his thoughts to the situation he was in. He was a planner. He had learned that early. If you acted without fully planning for the consequences, all hell would break loose. As a child, he’d been told he could shoot bean cans for target practice. They’d never specified they needed to be empty. Or somewhere other than the kitchen. He practiced outside after that but hadn’t figured on the aftermath of shooting out all the nails in the fence. No fence, no cows. Took nearly two days to round them all up. After a good switching from his pa, he’d learned his lesson. You wanted to do something, you made sure you gave plenty of thought to every possible way it could go. She was armed and he was naked. Still, he was probably a good foot taller than her, and despite her obviousness quickness and dexterity, he was fairly sure he could take her in a fight, even in the buff. He did as he usually did, envisioning the scenario as if it were a flicker show playing in his head. A simple attack would be best. He’d just jump her and pin her down when she wasn’t looking, make her cry ‘uncle’ and tell him where his damn clothes were. As the scene played on, it became something else. He could see how her eyes would flash angrily, her cheeks all flushed, his body and hers entwined and suddenly what he was thinking about wasn’t fighting at all! 

He frowned and stepped out of the water, starting to pace back and forth in frustration. Now that he’d woken that part of his brain, it wouldn’t shut up. Perhaps seduction was a better tactic than a full-on assault. Sweet talk her into giving up his clothes so he could ride out and … and what? He hadn’t any job waiting. He had no home, no family left, no reason to be in any one place more than another. Judging by the smell seeping in from the other room, there was something good cooking for breakfast. Yeah, he could turn on the Marksley charm and she’d be eating out of his hand. Oh great, another image he didn’t need clogging up his head. 

In his pacing, he moved toward the stool in the corner, seeing something lying upon it. Had she been kind enough to leave him clothes? The second he touched it he knew she was going to pay. She’d left him clothes alright. A pair of silk bloomers. They weren’t split tails, thankfully, and as they were drawstring they’d easily fit around his narrow figure, but it was an indignity! She was probably out there having quite the giggle. Still, was it worse than having nothing at all between the world and his manly bits? The quilt was thicker, but if he dropped it, there he’d be in all his glory before a strange woman. On the other hand, she’d already seen him naked, hadn’t she? She called it her father’s cabin. Maybe the old man had put him to bed and he’d be there when Rex exited. Another reason to at least make an attempt to cover up his business. 

He rolled his eyes and stepped into the silken drawers, shivering as the cloth tickled every little leg hair all the way up. He pulled the red ribbon drawstring taut beneath his navel, tying it into a bow and plucking at the ruffled legs dubiously. On a lady, they’d probably reach the knee but they only went as far down as mid-thigh on him. As he was used to woolen unders, the silk was a huge change. Every time he moved it shifted and caressed, a teasing sort of touch that was at once too clingy and too slippery. He retrieved the quilt, wrapping it under his arms and crossing it so there was ample coverage for the inevitable result of having such a sensitive place rubbed by silk. How did women stand it?! How did they manage to look so cool and detached when they had to deal with this sort of thing? Deal with it he would though. If they could do it, so could he.


	3. Chapter 3

As she cooked, Regina thought over the last forty-eight hours of her life. She had taken the iron horse to Silver Springs to load up for the coming winter. It took the best part of a day to reach town, and all the stores were closed by the time she arrived. She’d paid for one night in the local hotel though it wasn’t to sleep. It simply wasn’t safe for a woman to sit on a bench outside the general store all night. Soon as the shops opened, Regina spent the morning purchasing her needed items. The usual flour, sugar, beans, and so forth, as well as new books, lamp oil, some willow bark, fabric, and other sundry goods to make being snowed in for a few weeks a little more tolerable. The iron horse was handy, but it took the last of her coal supply just to make it back home. She just needed to stay in the cabin until the thaw, then she could just walk back to Silver Springs and use the last of her money for a train ticket to anywhere else. Now that her father was gone, she had no reason to remain. 

It had been two years ago when her father’s physician contacted her. She’d had reasons of her own to leave Ohio, but her father’s failing health sealed the deal, as it were. She’d grown up at his knee, the apprentice to a master inventor. His final invention, had been both his most brilliant and his downfall. An explosion in the boiler sent him flying, striking his head. His hired man had raced back to town on horseback to fetch the doctor, but by the time they got back, there was little that could be done. Her father was alive in only the barest sense. He breathed, his heart beat, but he was like a babe instead of a man. She’d taken him home, cared for him, shaved him, cleaned him, carried him from bed to chair to bath to bed every day. One morning, he was cold and stiff and she felt a pang of guilt even now to recall that she’d not felt much more than relief that his suffering was ended, and thus so was hers. He had little in the way of personal fortune left. The only thing he had of value was the iron horse and she knew if she, a woman, tried to sell it, they’d offer pennies and make millions off her father’s brilliance. It was parked now, in an open sided shelter covered by a large tarp. She had only just finished putting it away this morning. She’d have done it last night, but after she spied the tracks leading to the cabin, she was a bit busy. 

She’d followed the tracks to the barn first, finding the horse inside pressing up against the straw in an bid to get warm. She talked soothingly, managed to get the saddle off and onto the ground. An inspection showed its legs were still caked with snow, which wasn’t good. She took the brush and cleared it away, then wound some cloth up and around his legs to warm them further. Shoving the roll in her pocket, she fluffed the straw and got him into a stall where he could wait out the night. It hadn’t come alone. Now to find its owner. The tracks were not yet filled in, a stride that spoke of a tall person with large feet had gone from the barn to the cabin. The rifle shouldered, she slowly lifted the latch and pushed open the door, sighting down the barrel as a wave of warmth washed over her. Stepping inside, the intruder was instantly spied. Sprawled out across the floor under her mother’s wedding quilt, a man was snoring. She kicked his foot and he grumbled, turning a bit and pulling the quilt higher over his shoulders which drug it up his legs. Somehow it had gone sideways and while it might have been long enough to cover him, it wasn’t wide enough. 

She lit a lamp and searched through his clothes, finding nothing that would tell her anything about him. There was nothing. No ticket for a train or stage, no badge or love note or folded up wanted poster with his face, stolen out of vanity. In the lamplight he looked terrible. He was handsome, yes, but there were grey swaths under his eyes and a crinkle in his brow that even sleep wasn’t soothing away. His fingers were frozen. Best thing for him would have been a nice hot bath and then straight to bed, but further attempts to rouse him failed, and she settled for the latter. It was impossible to move him and preserve his modesty. She looked as little as possible, and after her father, she’d grown used to seeing naked men so she was sure she wouldn’t faint. Rolling him onto the quilt, she drug him over to the cot and then up onto it. The quilt was tucked in all around him to keep him cozy. Now she had to figure what to do next. She needed time to think. Shoving her hands into her pockets as she looked down at him, she felt the roll of leg wrap and smirked. Five minutes later, he was snugly bundled in the quilt and safely tied down in case he woke before she got back from the other things she had to do before she could even hope to sleep. 

The wagon unloaded, she took the shoveler and dug a path from the house to the barn. It wouldn’t last, there were more storms coming, but it was easier to shovel a foot of snow three times than three feet all at once. She lit a fire in the back room to warm it up, leaving the door ajar so the heat could fill the house more quickly. His clothes were hung up in there as well, and when they were dry, she got the idea to hide them. If he didn’t have clothes, he’d be too ashamed to try to steal anything and run off. She’d hidden them away, then put the iron horse into its shed. Coming in from that she’d found him awake. He was far more polite than she’d expected. He had a way of talking which made her knees go a bit soft. Still, since he seemed to be a gentleman, she’d fix him a nice breakfast, get him his clothes back, and see him on his way. He could, she was sure, make it to Silver Springs before the next blizzard hit. 

Stepping away from the stove, she told herself that she was glad he would be going. She liked her solitude. A few leftover boiled potatoes were sliced into the sizzling bacon grease while the meat itself drained on a few pages of the Silver Springs Sentinel. A bit of salt and pepper tossed in and she wiped her brow. This was warm work. She sloughed off the heavy quilted hunting shirt and laid it over a chair. It wasn’t as if she were indecent. Beneath she still had on three more shirts, not counting her chemise. She was just beginning to wonder where he was when she heard the door open. “I hope you drink it black.” She took up the coffee pot with a folded cloth, turning to look in his direction. He seemed taller now that he was standing on his own two feet. Even wrapped in the quilt he looked imposing. Each step he took seemed to pain him. “If not, I’ve sugar, but no … um … cream. Sorry.” She had to tip her head a bit to look up at him as he drew closer. Instinct sent her hand to her hip to encircle the handle of the knife up how frightened she looked. 

Skittish women who had long knives were very dangerous creatures. He remembered the plan. Lure her into a feeling of comfortable camaraderie. “No. I like black coffee best. Thank you.” He took the offered mug by the handle, using his free hand to hold the overlapped quilt tighter. The silk she’d left to humiliate him was tickling in a spot that would have been rude to adjust in the middle of a whorehouse, much less a lady’s kitchen so soon as she turned to check on the potatoes, he did a little wiggle of his hips and adjusted the quilt hoping it would dislodge the clinging fabric. “You said this was your father’s cabin? I hope he knows my clothes were stolen. I would hate for him to come in and get the wrong idea.” The thought of some backwoods, grizzled trapper coming storming in with his shotgun made his stomach flip. 

“You’re quite safe.” She spoke quietly, her tone sober and sad. “He died two months ago.” She was setting out the plates, her hair falling over her face to hide it from his prying gaze. She was, now that he had a time to truly study her, a very pretty sort of girl. She had removed one of her shirts, and the curves of her feminine frame were a bit more evident now. Her bearing, even though obviously sad, was strong and her hands were, by the looks, work-hardened. She was no wilting violet, obviously. She’d managed to deal pretty well so far, but a woman alone in a desolate location like this was simply wrong in his way of thinking. He was a stranger, and she was being very kind to him, but if her were another kind of stranger who found himself here, well, Rex shuddered to think about it. Unbidden he saw her as he’d seen others in his travels. Beaten, bloody, dead eyes staring into the distance, looking for the help that was too slow in arriving. He had to push the memories away. “I want to thank you for your kindness.” He took a swallow of coffee which was bitter and strong and scalded his tongue a little. “I mean, you’d have been well to your rights to just throw me out into a snowdrift to freeze instead of seeing me to bed.” 

“You’re as welcome as I suppose you can be.” She didn’t sound very happy. He chose to believe it was because he’d reminded her of her dead father and not because she was regretting not letting him freeze. He pointedly avoided looking her way when she came near to poke at the potatoes with a wooden spoon, choosing to go find a seat at the table. As he walked, beneath the quilt, the silk was moving again, a feather-light brushing that clung to every hair and plucked them like harp strings until everywhere seemed to vibrate with that teasing caress. Her nearness didn’t help when the underwear had already kindled awareness of his body. A rush of pink raced to his cheeks when he realized that they were probably hers originally. The thought of her in them, of them touching her as intimately as they were touching him, it wasn’t the kind of thing he ought to even allow, much less dwell on yet it seemed to take hold in a quiet part of his brain and set to whispering sinful, devilish things whenever he let his thoughts wander. Bacon. He’d concentrate on the smell of bacon. “Smells good, by the way.” He sat down, making sure his lap was well covered as he turned his back to her and focused every part of his thinking onto breakfast and breakfast only, nursing his coffee with hunched shoulders rife with tension.

“I hope so.” She chuckled faintly, a marking of her mood clearing from the pall cast by being reminded of her father’s passing. “You know, I don’t even know your name, Mr...” He twitched a bit, as if startled. Perhaps he’d been in deep thought. Maybe he was a famous outlaw. They never did get the faces on the posters right. “You don’t have to tell me, if you wish it to remain private, I understand.” 

He was so focused on the words he wasn’t actually hearing them. It took him a moment to push through the haze of half-imagined fantasy he was pointedly working to ignore to register that she’d asked his name. He could think of no reason not to be honest. He was hardly famous. “Rex, Ma’am. Rex Marksley.” 

“Rex?” He heard laughter in her voice, unshed but there. He whipped his head around and saw the corners of her mouth twitching a bit as if she was going to break out in snickering. Just what the hell did she find so funny? She brushed her fingertips over her lips as if to dust away the giggle before her breath gave birth to it. “I’m sorry, forgive me. I am pleased to meet you properly, Mr. Marksley. Regina.” She closed the distance between them, holding out her hand toward him. “Regina Chandler.” 

He had the coffee cup in his left hand, the right was busy with the quilt. In order to take her hand, he had to put the mug down and switch jobs between them all without letting the quilt shift and betray what the rubbing of silk and the unwelcome flood of saucy thoughts had begun to create. “Miss Chandler.” He was not surprised to find her fingers were strong and though smooth, there was a hardness to the skin that came only with work. He met her eyes, finding they were not as cold as he’d originally thought. Amidst the blue were swaths of gray. The clouds that followed after rain on a summer afternoon. Pulling his gaze away a moment before his hand, he frowned faintly. “Please, Miss Chandler, do excuse me.” He muttered as he stood up and stalked back into the bathing room. 

She watched him go, hoping she’d not offended him somehow. Had he thought she was laughing at his name? Well, she was, in a way. His was Rex. Hers was Regina. They translated to King and Queen. It just struck her as one of those funny things in life. As she thought on it, he probably had to use the privy. Sometimes coffee did strange things to people. She moved the heavy skillet off the stove and set it on a folded cloth on the table, the lid set over it to keep the heat inside. She could not shake the feeling of his hand in her own, how his fingers seemed to wrap all the way around until she was enveloped by him. His eyes were a deep hazel, mingled browns and greens that seemed to alter even as she was looking into them. Shaking her head to push those kinds of thoughts away, she spared a quick look toward the trapdoor in the floor which lead down to the root cellar. There, amidst the piled potatoes and squash, secure in a pillowcase, was his inside clothing. She wasn’t about to go out and hide them in that horrible snowy landscape like she’d told him. To be fair, his outer clothing and boots were in the barn. She’d done what she had to as a last resort. If he did kill her, he couldn’t just run off. Of course, now that he was free to move as he pleased he could just as easily live off her newly stocked pantry in the comforts of her father’s house while her dead body waited for the spring outside to make itself known again. Not to mention that there was plenty he could do to hurt her that didn’t involve killing. Or clothes an unwelcome voice in her mind whispered. What had seemed a good plan the night before was coming unraveled quickly. She’d made a mistake last night. Deciding swiftly, she opened the trapdoor and hurried down, a new plan taking hold in her brain.


	4. Chapter 4

In the bathroom, Rex stood before the washbasin, now filled with steaming water from the kettle he’d set to boil when he walked in. The mirror fog was wiped away and he stared at himself. He’d retreated, true, but it was strategic. He had to get his mind clear. The coffee cup was empty and cold atop the three-legged stool. The door he’d locked from inside. The quilt sat in a pile near the fireplace, safe from soot or sparks, but it’d be warm when he put it back on. He’d had to strip the damned silk drawers off, the ebony fabric in his fist, as if he could crush them in punishment for tormenting him like they had. Their tickling had put him in a mindset that was easily influenced towards carnality. He was aware of how he must have looked to her, so much taller than she, staring at her like he wanted to take a bite out of her rather than the potatoes. She was like a doe at the end of a hunter’s rifle barrel, unafraid simply because she didn’t know the danger she was in. Her eyes on his, the parting of her lips, how sweet they must taste. He groaned faintly as another surge of desire made him tighten and ache. Alone in this room, he had nothing to distract him from the wicked thoughts. 

He met his own eyes in the mirror again. His beard had grown a bit overnight, lending a rakish shadow to his jawline, his wiry frame composed of muscle and bone, hard and pale as ivory. A body she’d seen. Touched. He could almost feel her hands on him as she laid him out and covered him up. Even the idea of her tying him down was stirring up thoughts of her leaning across him, pressing into him, wriggling as she tied one knot, then moved to the next. What if she had wanted to forgo the blanket, he’d have been unable to stop anything she would choose to do. He’d be her plaything. His knees weakened as he was overcome with imaginings of her using him most sinfully, her head thrown back, her body bare atop his, unable to do anything but be ridden until she was finished with him. To turn the tide, to have her at his mercy and make her writhe...the heat of the fire last night couldn’t touch the burning he felt now. The only way to ease the ache was to surrender to it. His length felt feverish under his fingers even through the bunched silk, his teeth grit as he forced himself to silence any sound but ragged breath from his lips, every dark thought in his head flashing in his mind’s eye, her mouth, her body, her voice in his ear, begging, promising, his name a prayer she murmured and then screamed in bliss. He felt that rush of ecstasy, every part of him alive and quivering. A few moments of pleasure and then, in its wake, shame. Deep, unbearable shame. He was disgusted with himself. He washed until his body was sore and reddened. Her underthings were quite ruined by his release so he threw them in the fire He was unsure what he’d tell her happened to them, but it damned well wouldn’t be the truth. Wrapping the quilt back around himself, he opened the door slowly, steeling himself for facing her. On the floor outside the door, he found his own underthings, as well as his jeans and shirt, folded neatly in a row. He looked for her but didn’t see her nearby. It occured to him then that his things were _just outside the door_. Had she heard? Did she know? It was mortifying. 

He pulled them in and dressed quickly. He had to excuse himself somehow. There was no excuse though for what he’d done. In broad daylight! Did he not have any control at all? He had never been so grateful for the itchy wool of his union suit and the tight grip of his denim jeans. They were not only dry and warm, but they were also familiar and he felt more himself with them between him and the world. He still had no socks or boots, and no coat, but at least he could walk without that teasing silken fabric ticking his nether bits. Hand on the door, he took a deep breath, still not sure what he was going to say to her. If he saw one hint in her eyes that she knew, he wouldn’t have to talk, he’d just drop dead on the spot. He crossed the room, brow knitting when he found the steaming pan on the table, a folded piece of paper before it, but no Regina. His fingers shook when he took the paper up, expecting a diatribe of how he was a disgusting pig and how she couldn’t even look at him. 

_ **Mr Marksley,  
Please enjoy the breakfast. I have gone to check the traps. You are welcome to remain if you like, but if you must go, I advise you to ride quickly to the north. Another storm is coming. You will not make Silver Springs before it hits, but if you keep your course, you will arrive well before it kills you or your horse. ** _

Well, at least it wasn’t what he’d feared. Perhaps she’d gone before he’d even begun his self-abuse. Looking behind him, he noticed now that her shirt, her coat, and her boots were indeed missing. He pulled open the door, hoping she hadn’t gotten so far he couldn’t call her back and thank her, but only a glaring white world accosted his eyes. It took a moment for them to adjust but when they did, he saw no sign of her. The snow was still falling, slower, smaller flakes drifting about in a haphazard tumble from sky to earth. Rubbing his hands up and down his upper arms, the cold seeping through his clothes, he noticed she’d made a path from the barn to the house. That would make checking on his horse a bit easier. Turning to return to the warmth of the cabin he spied his coat hung beside the door, his boots, the socks balled up in one, his gloves in the other, set beneath it. The boots and their contents plucked up as he walked inside, he deposited them near the stove and let its radiant heat seep into his outstretched hands, the floor all toasty beneath his feet. Returned to the table, he read the letter twice more, taking particular heed of the words ‘welcome to remain’. If she thought ill of him, she’d hardly make such an offer. He felt a bit more cheerful. He’d take her advice and enjoy the breakfast, but then he’d saddle his horse and ride, hell-bent for leather, toward this Silver Springs. Retrieving his coffee mug, he also picked up the quilt and carefully laid it out across the cot, smoothing it’s stitched colors beneath his palm. He reconsidered leaving. Those same thoughts as before returned. That she was lucky it was him who stumbled on this place and not some of the bastards he’d dealt with in his own life. He had always had a soft spot for the downtrodden. Those who the world sought to take advantage of. He’d fought lots of folks who tried to cheat or threaten the little guy. That was how Rex had become a gun for hire. Righting wrongs was just in his nature and a damsel in distress was a weakness he couldn’t ever turn away from. A part of him reminded him that she was no flimsy bit of fluff who seemed to get all faint when confronted with something troubling, but still, he couldn’t leave her unprotected. It was equally clear to him that he couldn’t remain in the house with her. Not after this morning. He stood up from his smoothing and stalked to the stove to refill his coffee and tuck into that breakfast. It was a little cold, but still very good. His stomach was filled up in a way it hadn’t been in weeks. If he didn’t leave, he’d have to be rolled out in the spring like a prize hog. No, he had to go. 

Back and forth he went, arguing with himself. It was obvious there was some base part of him that was incapable of controlling itself where she was concerned. He’d slip up somehow and she catch him leering at her and all the trust she’d so generously bestowed upon him would go out the window. But better she be distrustful and safe than be alone in this wilderness where a real threat, someone whose thoughts were just as base, someone who would act on them, might come along. It was said that familiarity bred contempt so he hoped that the longer he was around, the less that sinful part of him would be trying to take control. For now, the best idea was to be close, but not too close. 

Her safety was paramount, so the first thing he did was familiarize himself with the house. Not out of nosiness, but to get the lay of the land. The ladder by the old mantel lead up to a loft. Sticking his head up through, he saw enough to make it clear that must be her bedroom. He took stock of the windowless nature of the loft and deemed it safe without paying heed to anything that might somehow influence another of his terrible flights of sensual fantasy. The rest of the house was fairly straightforward. One room divided visually into kitchen/dining room, living room, and bedroom. The washing room was fine but the door out to the privy wasn’t able to be bolted from inside. Canvas walls weren’t going to keep out much more than the snow. Mentally he added the job to the list of things to do. The windows were inspected as were the latches on the front door. That too would need to be fixed. If he could break in, anyone could. 

Now for the exterior. He pulled on his socks and boots, his coat and gloves and wound the scarf around his face, turning his steps toward the barn. In the daylight, he could see that it was only a few dozen yards away. Last night it had seemed like miles. If he went with his current plan, he would have to add a rope between the barn and the house he could follow even in the dark. It wouldn’t do to get lost at night if he were needed. Nor would it do to walk into the water pump again. He gave it a dirty look as he passed, then walked a bit quicker as the wind lifted and stung at his eyes. The blanket at the door of the submerged barn pushed aside and he stepped in, his eyes having to adjust anew to the near-dark. 

As she’d said, his horse was doing well. She’d wrapped its legs in strips of cloth, the same strips she’d tied him down with, he noticed, to add warmth to them. There was no loft, but the barn being half underground kept it very toasty. Not as nice as the house, but fluff the straw and hang up a few of the horse blankets, yeah, it would suit him fine. It would be safer for them both with him out here. He wondered for a moment if he’d have heard her screaming in the cabin last night over the howl of the wind? He pushed the thought aside. He’d simply make the house as safe as he could and keep her protected from without. She wouldn’t have to scream if nothing got past him. 

She’d removed his saddle, but everything on it was still where he’d left it. Undoing the bedroll, he staked out a corner that was both clean and dry and set up camp. Two of the spare horse blankets under his bedroll would keep the straw from poking him, another hung up as a door over the stall’s entrance would act as another barrier to the cold air as well as giving him a bit of privacy. It could work. She might balk at the idea at first, but he’d pull the old ‘Well, you see, I’m a cowboy ma’am. Home on the range and roaming buffalo and all that’ speech out of his repertoire and sway her to thinking it was a kindness to leave him in a barn with a horse for company. 

That decided, he made his way back toward the house, memorizing how many steps to the water pump, the woodpile, the porch. He crossed to the other side, intent on checking out that half of the cabin’s exterior. Under a tree a hundred or so yards away he spied something sticking out of the ground. He squinted until he could make out a crooked cross of iron pipe that stood out against the snow. Her father’s grave he reasoned. Further back on the property, in another barn of sorts, something large was hidden beneath a tarp. A corner of it had come up and was crackling in the wind like the sails of a ship. Curiosity overruled politeness and he stepped off the porch into the snow, sinking halfway up to his knees. The snow rushed into his boots, when he lifted his foot, nearly claiming one as he backpedaled back up onto the porch. Swearing faintly under his breath, he limped toward the door quickly, stopping to pull his boots off and shake out the snow as he pushed open the door and scampered back to the warm spot near the stove, peeling his socks off and shaking them before laying them aside to dry out. That shock of cold stifled the urge to go prying further, at least for the moment. Next time he’d be sure his pant legs were on the outside of his boots. Barefoot and in half-damp jeans, he took another look around the inside of the house. He was stuck here for a bit. Hating to be idle, he cleaned up from breakfast best he could. He put the leftovers in a crockery bowl he found in the cabinet and covered it with a cloth, though he doubted flies were going to swarm in the middle of winter. A further search of the pantry resulted in the discovery of a broom. Sweeping up was not that hard and quickly done. Once his socks were dry, he restocked the inside woodpiles and emptied the tub by making trip after trip down the tent-hall with the pitcher to dump it out at the outhouse end. The recollection of the bit of puddle he’d trod in made him very careful of spills on his way. 

Throughout the day it snowed off and on, the brightness that had been so glaring in the morning gave way to heavy clouds as the sun crept ever westward. It was only three in the afternoon, judging by the clock on the mantel, but it was dark as dusk outside already. Now that he was familiar with the cabin and knew where the lamps were, he lit enough to illuminate the cabin nicely. He hoped the lit windows would guide her back. Having run out of things to do, he just sat in the rocking chair, watching the door. Again, without anything to distract him, he found himself thinking about her. Thankfully, this time he was able to drift through his memories without the drowning tide of pent-up lust he’d been unaware was lurking inside. She was pretty, but many girls were. He compared her to other girls he knew of and if he was honest, she was probably to be found wanting in most of the ways that were considered valuable. A lady ought to be delicate and demure. She should be soft as a rose petal or possibly a peach with that same creamy complexion. Her hands should be fine-boned and delicate as porcelain. Her hair a smooth and gleaming arrangement of perfection that, when undone, would cascade down her back to at least her rump. Regina was nothing like that. She had hair whose unruly curls reached only her shoulders. Her nose was kissed with freckles, her hands were obviously used to working hard. She had found a naked man in her home and hadn’t screamed or fainted or locked herself in the other room, she’d merely dealt with him rather clinically by dragging him over to the bed and seeing he was tied down so he couldn’t cause trouble, just in case. Good sense was not something as highly prized in a woman as ethereal beauty was, but it was a damn sight more valuable to him. She was a fair cook so far, though he had only a single meal to judge her by. Mostly he was moved by the way she had of making him feel welcome when she should have been treating him like what he was, a stranger who’d broken into her house and passed out naked on the floor. The more he thought about how she’d acted and spoken, the more he began to see her as somebody who wouldn’t have pulled a prank like those bloomers on him. They were probably her own, overlooked in a hurry to clean up for company she wasn’t expecting. It would have been a funny story if the ending were different. Again, he was overcome with odium over what he’d done to them. 

A sound came from outside, a somewhat distant clatter of metal-to-metal which snapped him from the reverie and set him on edge. His guns were in the barn still, thinking it might be a bit forward for him to come into her house armed. It seemed rude somehow. 

She must have taken the rifle, as it wasn’t by the door, so that left him with only whatever lay around for defense. There was a poker by the fireplace in the bathing room. With a cat-like tread, he slipped into the room, now a bit chilly as the fire had died to only the faintest glow amidst the ashes. He wrapped slender fingers around the poker’s brass handle and lifted it from its cradle. Sneaking to the back door, he opened it slowly and left it ajar. Pressed close to the rough and snow-coated boards of the cabin, he pushed himself between the canvas wall and it, looking out toward the back of the property where he guessed the sound had come from. There was a creak and in the very faint haze of a half-moon filtering through heavy clouds, he noted a building further back than the outhouse sitting all by itself. A dark and hairy figure trudged away from it and toward him. It wavered a moment, then tumbled backward with a very rude and undisguisable feminine curse. He stifled a laugh as she fought to get to her feet and once he was assured she was alright, he quietly slid back under the flap of fabric and back through the house, leaving his snowy boots in the bathing room so not to track water through the house. By the time she made her way around, he was back in the rocker, pretending to be casually reading a book that, just a half-second before the door opened, he realized he was holding upside down. 

After a great deal of stomping outside, the door opened and she stepped in only enough to strip off her coat and step out of her own boots, shuddering as her hands brushed the snow from her trousers. She shut the door and ran a hand back across her unruly mane of golden-brown curls. “Oh. You’re still here.” She didn’t sound anything more than conversational. Was he wrong to assume she had meant it when, in the note, she said he was welcome to stay? 

He stood slowly, setting aside the book as he did. “Yes. I thought it was best. It’s not right, a woman being alone out here. I ought to stay until you can send word to your brother or beau or whomever usually is out here seeing to you.”

“Seeing to me?” She grinned a moment, then shook her head faintly. “I see to me, Mr. Marksley. I don’t have brothers or a beau. No uncles, no well-meaning neighbor gents…” She laughed under her breath and shook her head as if he was too funny to be believed. She gave a once-over to the kitchen, seeing all the work he’d done, she met his eyes and smiled before she took up a kettle and put some water on the boil. “The blizzard, the one you just barely escaped? It’s the baby. There’s another pair coming, or so Looks-To-The-Sky says.” She moved into the kitchen and removed a half loaf of bread and the butter crock, setting them on the table. “She’s Osage. She’s about a hundred years old and she’s never been wrong about a storm in her life.” Plucking the honey pot from a cabinet along with the plates he’d washed earlier she began slicing the bread. “So you’re worried over me for nothing. Nobody’s going to be out in it, and by the time the storms pass, I’ll be good and snowed in, as will everyone else. I’ll be safe as a woodchuck in my little den.” She sobered a bit and looked at him. “Of course, now you’re stuck here too. There’s no way to make it safely even to Silver Springs now.” Sighing she rolled her shoulders in a shrug. “No need to whistle now that the dog’s dead I suppose.” 

He had listened as she spoke. He found a little surge of happiness raced up his back when she said she hadn’t any beau. An old Indian who knew the weather well enough to predict storms was good enough for him. They would both be stuck for a while. He ought to have felt more trapped. Less excited about the prospect of seeing her day after day. When she said the bit about whistling and dead dogs, he blinked in confusion for a moment until it came to him that she must mean something like locking the pen once the cows were out. Once something was done, it was too late to do anything to prevent it. She buttered the sliced bread and then skewered it on a long fork, holding it over the hot top of the stove by only an inch or so, turning it now and again until the slice was toasted. “Eat them while they're hot, I’m a little too tired to pull together a real dinner.” 

“No, its fine.” he passed behind her, smelling the clean scent of pine and cold, and beneath it something that was undeniably feminine. “Did you have any luck?” He dippered out some honey and applied it to the bread. 

“Yeah. The snow is a blessing for the hunter I suppose. Got four rabbits that weren’t gnawed on. Hung them in the smoking shed. They’ll be fine until morning.” Another piece of toast was set on his plate. “You any good at hunting, Mr. Marksley?”

He found himself smirking faintly into his toast. “I’m an alright shot, I guess.” He glanced her way, amused by the fact that while he knew himself to be the greatest marksman to ever ride the plains, she didn’t. Imagining her inevitable surprise when he could show her was a very pleasant thought. He wasn’t very fond of hunting but knew where to hit to make the kill quick and painless. The aftermath was also something he would rather not have dealt with. “I don’t really eat much meat, myself.” 

She turned, looking deeply shocked. “Truly? I’ve never met a man who didn’t want huge slabs of steak with every meal.” She had toasted the remainder of the bread and set her own plate across the table. “Probably should indulge a little more though. Pale as you are, a little meat would do you good.”

He didn’t answer to that, choosing to choke back his wicked sides whisper of ‘a little meat would do you good too’ with an especially large bite of honeyed bread before it could potentially be spoken unwittingly. While he chewed, she poured out hot tea for them both, setting his cup before him before taking her own and her seat opposite. Only once he’d washed down the bread and his mouth was clear again did he feel it was safe to look at her again, much less speak. “I’ve had time to make a few decisions today. Obviously, first I decided to stay.” She gave a gesture with her toast and a tip of her head as she chewed that said wordlessly Obviously. Go on. so he continued. “That said, I think it would be best if I slept out in the barn. I mean, you might not be expecting company, but if you did get some, to see you living with a strange man, well, I don’t want to ruin your reputation. You’ve been so kind.” She looked, for a moment, like she’d argue, but after a moment, she nodded. He’d prepared for a fight about the barn being unfit, and after the way she’d taken to him implying she needed seeing to, he was sure she’d have balked about the idea of her reputation being ruined. Now he felt a little off-balance. He had dreaded the idea of the fight, but now that he wasn’t getting one, he was disappointed somehow. 

“All right. You must promise me two things though. Firstly, if it gets too cold for you, or you even begin to start feeling ill, you will come back to the house that instant.” 

Okay, there was the concern he’d expected. She’d just come around to it in a way that he’d not planned on. “I can agree to that. What’s the second thing?” 

“You won’t leave without letting me know. I mean, you can go wherever you like, you’re not a prisoner here. Well, not anymore. I mean, you weren’t exactly a prisoner just because you were tied down … She shrugged faintly and took a dainty bite of her own bread. Her cheeks were pink and it was pretty clear she was frustrated that it hadn’t come across clearly. Washing it down with a swallow of tea, she amended her babbling. “I’d rather if you didn’t just … vanish.” 

“Don’t hit the trail without saying goodbye.” He gave a nod. “I agree to that as well.” He wouldn’t needle her. She’d had a very hard day. They fell to silence, but it wasn’t strained. They were both just content to have toast and tea and share the table without filling the air with small talk. He’d glance her way now and then, noting how wan she seemed. Much as he’d seen she’d done since his arrival, she was no doubt worn to the nub. “Thank you for the dinner, Miss Chandler.” He stood up and took his plate. “I hope you’ll allow me to tend to the dishes since you did the cooking?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but did them with the remainder of the kettle’s water and put the plates back in the cabinet, the honey and butter back in their places in the pantry.

She rose slowly, her head hanging a bit. “I fear I must bid you goodnight, Mr. Marksley. If you need anything, I am sure you will let me know.” Her smile, if weary, was honest. 

“Goodnight, Miss Chandler.” He bowed his head, fingers touching where a hat’s brim might be. “I hope you sleep well.” He retrieved his boots and stepped into them, wrapping his scarf around his face as she turned the lamps to darkness around him. “Be sure you lock the door behind me.” He admonished with what he hoped sounded both firm and polite. 

Stepping outside, he waited until he heard the inner bolt slid over. Good. He could attempt to get some sleep of his own. Stepping off the porch the wind rose again, sending up a whirl of snow that stung wherever it touched. He recognized that smell. It was that of a coming storm for certain. As the shards of ice were buffeted into his eyes, he again underlined mentally the need for the rope to be hung tomorrow. Only once he was inside the barn and out of the wind, did he felt free to breathe. Outside, it had been like pulling daggers into his lungs. Stomping about to dislodge the snow from his boots and warm his blood, lit a lantern and set it on a barrel to illuminate the interior. Carrying it in one hand, his first task was to check on the horse, breaking through the thin layer of ice atop its water bowl and assuring it had fresh hay before he slipped into his own little corner where he set the lantern on a barrel and lowered his scarf from his face at last. Compared to the cabin, it was hardly inviting, but he reminded himself of why he was out here He dug his journal from his saddlebag and opened it to write the date and what had happened thus far. 

The journal was not really a day-to-day thing, as he wrote in it only when life-changing events occurred. New hires, conclusions of those jobs, large purchases or the like. The wind howled like a banshee outside and he shivered a bit. Maybe he could talk her into allowing him to put up a real door, now that there was someone living in there who could work a door latch. Maybe he could just do a better job of closing off this one stall into a groom’s room. Whichever, that was for tomorrow. He extinguished the lantern and lay back, staring up at the darkness above. He listened to the wind, to the nicker of the horse in the stall next door, his own breathing. He thought he would tumble right to sleep, but it eluded for a while. When it did finally take him, it was deep and thankfully dreamless.


	5. Chapter 5

The morning brought little in the way of light, only stiffness and cold. It took several minutes of stretching and bending each joint to even feel capable of walking. Every shivery breath was a cloud of silver. Looking out into the barn’s main part, he could see where the blanket had blown up at the bottom, letting in a long finger of snow that reached nearly two feet into the room. There was no other way about it, he would have to build some kind of real door today. He hoped she had something he could use to do it. Inwardly, he was marking measurements even as he took the extra blankets and split them between the door, making a wider, double-layer door from them that would back up the original, and covering the horse’s back to make a coat of sorts to help keep it warm. 

“Sorry I can’t take you inside with me.” He patted the beast’s neck. “I am sure Miss Chandler wouldn’t mind, but your table manners are worse than even mine.” A last amiable scratch behind the beast’s ear before heading out. The path she’d dug the day before was completely gone. It did not seem so much that more snow had fallen, though he could see another few inches had certainly been added. It was the wind. It had created a whole new landscape of drifts and hollows like a great white desert. Again mourning his decision to leave hanging the rope to today, as he could have used it to help pull himself along. As it was, he was wet to the knees by the time he pulled himself up on the porch. 

This time, knocking had the hoped-for effect and he pressed inside the moment the door opened, heading directly for the woodstove. 

“Good morning, Mr. Marksley.” She chuckled amiably as she closed the door behind him.

“Mrnin” his muffled words pushed through the scarf as he worked to pull the gloves off then undo the buttons of his coat with chilled fingers. Once he’d sloughed it and hung it up, he peeled away the scarf and drew a deep breath of the warm, sweet-smelling air. “Good morning, Miss Chandler.” He finally glanced her way. “It smells very good, whatever it is.” Like the day before, she was dressed in those leather pants and layered shirts, neither of which did any favors to her figure. Not that he was complaining. He didn’t want a repeat of yesterday’s debauched events. It was bad enough that the sunlight was casting glints of gold in the coils of her hair, that the winter sky was no bluer than her sparkling eyes, alight with some merry mischievousness. She was telling him something about having made a cake for after dinner but currently all his mind could focus on was that breakfast was hot oatmeal with strawberry preserves, and only because she was currently licking a bit of berry off the back of her index knuckle. A dull clench of his belly and he forced his gaze away. 

“Sounds delicious.” He moved to the chair and sat, scooting closer to his bowl. “I have a few things I’d like to do today if you’re amenable.” He would force himself to think only about his mental to-do list. 

“Oh? Well, I’m all ears.” She poured the coffee and sat opposite. 

He added some of the thick berry sludge to his steaming oats and stirred it a bit until the whole bowl was pinkish. “I was hoping you had some wood I could use to build a proper door for the barn.” A spoonful of oatmeal and a swig of coffee and he continued. “Nothing fancy, just enough to block the wind and snow. Now that there are creatures living in it, I mean.”

“Of course, Mr. Marksley.” She nodded. “There’s a whole pile of supplies left over from when I built the back room.” 

His spoon paused midway to his mouth. “You built it?” He wasn’t, now that he thought on it, actually as shocked as he would have been yesterday.

“Well, yes and no. I drew up the plans. I oversaw the actual construction, and I did a lot of the work alongside the men I hired. Laid the stone for the fireplace hearth, hung the window, did most of the finish work knee level or lower.” She chuckled. “I was the closest to the ground.” She laughed into her coffee mug before taking a sip. “I built Privy Road all by myself though.” 

“Priv...privy road?” He choked a bit on his oatmeal as a bark of laughter at the name struck him funny. The pipe and canvas shelter over the way to the outhouse was a very good idea and the name fit. “Yes, I was admiring it yesterday.”

"Oh. Well, thanks" She gave a polite nod of acknowledgement of his complement. “So anyway..." seemingly unsure how to handle the praise. "There are all sorts of supplies stored in the engine room.”

Again, Rex paused in his eating. “Engine room?” He took note of the look that passed over her face. She had obviously said something she hadn’t meant to say. She was now seemingly trying to figure out where to go from there. 

“Do you know anything about mechanics, Mr. Marksley?” 

Her face and tone were difficult to read at the moment. He wasn’t certain how he ought to answer. In the end, though, the truth was best. “I know a bit. I am a tinkerer really. I like making things. It’s not how I make my living, but I would call it a hobby, certainly.” This seemed to be an answer she liked as she brightened a bit, offering to show him after breakfast was over. This was all the incentive he needed to concentrate on his oatmeal. After the meal, he let her handle the dishes while he poured them both a refill of coffee. He felt like a kid for some reason. Excited by a potential surprise. As he donned his outerwear, he watched her back as she scrubbed out the oatmeal pot. She was a very strange sort of woman. He wondered about things that really weren’t his business. What had made her like this? Why was she out in the middle of nowhere when it was obvious she wasn’t some local lass. Why didn’t she have a beau? She turned and he averted his eyes quickly lest he be caught staring. She too dressed for the outdoors, then lead him out onto the porch. He didn’t relish getting back into that knee-deep drift, but for her, it would be nearly thigh-high. 

“You wait inside, I’ll clear a path,” they said simultaneously. 

He blinked over his scarf at her and he could see her grin even behind the fur-edged bottom of her hood that buttoned up clear to her nose. “Trust me, my way is easier.” She pulled down a pair of snowshoes and tied them to her feet. “Go on. You can watch from the window if you like.” She stepped off the porch with that weird bow-legged walk such footwear demanded. Petite as she was, he wasn’t surprised that she could just walk across the drifts. A gust of wind rose and he watched her crouch down, riding it out before rising up and continuing on her way toward that barn he’d seen the day before, working her way around to the backside. He heard thumping and scraping, something thudding loudly, once, twice, a third time, echoey and metallic and then the rise of smoke and all was quiet for a couple of minutes. He watched the smoke rising, his concern growing. Eventually, he noticed the smoke was joined by a cloud of steam. A familiar sort of chugging sound that meant there was an engine back there. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw come around the barn though. 

Gone were the snowshoes, or more accurately they were hung over her shoulder as she walked well behind a small machine that was throwing up snow at either side in a cloud of steam. He watched, transfixed, as she caught up and hit a few switches and levers to turn it in his direction. It went in a straight line toward the house. He could see little of the workings until it got close. A large boiler, fed by wood, and a pair of spinning wheels at either side like very flat screws. The snow was scooped up at the bottom and sides and thrown out at the top. Near the porch, she jogged up again and flipped more switches to shift it, seemingly in place, turning it ninety degrees. “The shoveler.” She chuckled as she let it dig to the corner of the porch, turned it again so it could go across the front, and aimed it toward the barn. She stopped it there. “I can do the rest when we get back.” Her face was ruddy with the cold, and the steam had made tiny frozen droplets cling to every bit of fur she wore, giving her a glittering encasement as she moved. Rex was glad for the scarf that hid his slack-jawed expression. He looked between it and her, and was so overcome with questions he couldn’t decide which to ask first. Stepping down into the track, he found it was ridged and bumpy. A closer examination of the shoveler showed it ran on a pair of matching tracks, each a looping belt with planks of wood spaced out along it. This track mechanism was beneath a central upright support with the machine on top of it. He investigated the switches, finding he could reverse either track with the flick of a switch. One could run in forward while the other went in reverse. This would explain the ninety-degree turn, certainly. He looked from it to her, eyes asking the questions his mouth just couldn’t. 

“My father was a brilliant man.” She shrugged. “What can I say?” She chuckled. “Be careful, it’s kind of temperamental.” She crossed her arms over her chest as he nodded, but was obviously too curious to care. She wasn’t surprised that he figured out how to work it fairly quickly. “If you want, take it all the way to the barn.” A ‘go on’ gesture as she took up a lean by the front door. Men. Such children sometimes. 

The machine was brilliant, Rex thought, but he could see where improvements could be made. It got too hot for a start. If it weren’t literally surrounded by snow it would have overheated before it made it to the house. He could fix that though. Add some size, some teeth to those spinning screws and it could probably tear through brush. The tracks would be good for all manner of soil so a logger in Oregon could use it as well as someone in South America clearing jungle for houses. He was at the barn before he knew it. He flipped the switches and watched in amazement how one track went one way, the other moving opposite until it had turned in place. He flicked them both to forward and finished up the path in minutes. He turned it to go off away from the barn door and back out into the open land for a few feet. The wood was running out, the steam was slower, but he still didn’t want to risk a spark getting onto the dry straw. Long-legged stride carried him quickly back to the porch. “That was… amazing.” He was actually giddy. 

“Come on.” She wound her hand around his and gave a tug for him to follow. “I’ll show you the horse.” 

He was surprised at the feel of her hand in his, lost a moment later when she let go and jumped down into the rut dug by the shoveler and headed for the other barn. Why didn’t she keep her horse in the same barn as his? Confused he hurried to follow, flexing his fingers which still could feel her grip around them like a sensory ghost. He’d wondered what was under the tarp, and he wasn’t disappointed. What she called her ‘iron horse’ was built much like the shoveler in that it ran on paired tracks, but this was huge by compare. It would do the work of a dozen actual horses. He inspected it all over, some questions he found answers to by himself but some he had to ask aloud. She seemed patient and almost amused as she sat in the wagon seat behind the machine, her legs swinging back and forth idly as she answered his queries one after the other. So, he knew now how she’d made it through the storm two nights ago. And why she couldn’t now. It was a coal furnace and she had about enough coal to make a one-way trip. She hadn’t sold the design because she was smart enough to know they’d cheat her at best and steal it outright at worst. It was a quandry. 

“Anyway.” She swung down and dropped off the wagon with a faint grunt, brushing her hands off on her hips. “There’s plenty of building supplies in the back room. Feel free to build whatever you need to, Mr. Marksley.” 

He idly waved over his shoulder, too deeply involved in study to really pay attention. By the time her words actually penetrated his brain and he realized she was leaving, he had been alone for several minutes. He frowned at his rudeness and hopped down from the iron horse, pulling the tarp back over it and securing it well. No more flapping at least. The workshop was, as promised, filled to the brim with all manner of items. Stacks of wood planks, iron hinges, nails, pipe in iron and in copper, boxes of gears and pistons, wheels and sprockets and cotter pins of every size. He set to work as soon as he had committed most of the layout to memory. Within three hours he had built a rough door, knowing he’d have to cut it down to custom size once he got it back to the barn. He found a sledge, and stacked the door and several other items atop it. Rope, hammer and nails, hinges, boards and a rolled up bit of canvas. He pulled it behind him in the rut, but found it was far easier to put it up on the snowy part and pull it along beside his waist than at his feet. Still, it was slow going. He paused at the cabin as he passed, knocking firmly. Nothing. He wondered if she might be indisposed. He tried the door and found it unlocked. On the table was a stack of sliced cheese and bread and some kind of spiced sausage. There was a note reading only ‘gone fishing’ sitting under the edge of the plate. Stealing a bite of bread and cheese, he slipped back outside. He’d missed her. Again, he felt a pang of remorse that he’d gotten so sidetracked with the iron horse that he’d ignored her. Best cure was work though. First stop? The rope. It was a fairly easy thing, just a u-nail into the cabin’s corner and another at the barn, a rope strung between them. The other work was going to be more difficult. 

By early afternoon, the barn was a changed place. The blankets were down, and a real door hung in its place. Using the same wedged cork idea as the back door of the cabin it was far more wind-tight. A wooden board on the inside bottom of the doorway acted as a stop as well as blocking the wind across the hard-packed soil. He’d built up the outward side with dirt so it wasn’t a tripping hazard. Inside, he’d filled a few knotholes and replaced two of the planks that had come loose. The stall he’d taken possession of was swept out and a wall was built from floor to ceiling to further enclose it. He built a long wooden trough and filled it with fresh straw before laying the canvas over it. It wasn’t the greatest bed in the world, but it was better than sleeping on the ground. The planks he’d removed were made into shelves so he could hang his lantern and put some of his things up off the ground. Lastly, he hung the blankets, overlapped as they’d been over the front this morning, and created a door to give him both warmth and privacy. A trip back to the house found she’d not returned. He ate with more gusto this time, cleaning the plate before heading back to put the sledge away and guide the shoveler back to the workshop at the barn. He was glad of his own path to ‘Privy Road’ from the barn. Not only for the obvious reason, but so he could approach the house from the back if needed. 

The day had been fairly productive from his end. He was on his way back when he noticed the footprints. The wide swishing sort on the snow he knew to be the tracks of snowshoes. They lead to the little shed she’d hung the rabbits in the night before. Sure enough, she was in there. He could see through the open door, her hands bare and bloody, working without pleasure on skinning the rabbits. The hides set aside after she’d peeled them away. With her knife, she scraped the remaining tufts of fur off the meat and each was set aside until she had the four done. The skins scraped, she hung them up to dry. From behind her she lifted a string of fish and began the task of cleaning those as well. It ought to be sickening to watch, but she was so graceful that she made it look almost pretty. He tore his gaze away and continued on his way. He thought to give his horse a little exercise before the setting sun made it impossible. 

Saddled up, he lead the horse out of the new door and up the ramp to level ground. He mounted up and with a click of his tongue and a tap of his heels his mount, obviously bored after two days in the barn, sprang forward into the snow with gusto. Rex chuckled and let the beast have its head, going where it pleased at whatever pace it wanted for a few minutes. He realized after perhaps a quarter-hour than he’d not told Regina where he was going. What if she thought he’d broken his word and was just riding off without a goodbye? He tugged at the reins and pulled the horse around to head back for the cabin. He knocked gently but thought she must be back tending to the fish still, so he let himself in as he had already twice today. The note was still on the table, and so he looked about for a pen. A sound from the back room made him stop still. A splashing of water. She must be back there. He’d just go knock and tell her through the door. He strode toward the back of the cabin and lifted his hand to knock. Something made him lower his hand and pause. A low, soft moan amidst the splashing. He felt another rush of anxiousness take hold of his loins. He swallowed hard and lifted his hand to knock again, but his eye was caught by a bit of light at the edge of the door beneath the hinge. A flaw in the wood, a chink. Acting without thought, he peeked through it. 

Her back was to him as she knelt in the tub, creating a silhouette effect with the fireplace before her. Again, she made a quiet sound of pleasure. He pulled himself away and all but ran from the cabin. It had been, perhaps three seconds he’d watched but it was too much. Swinging up into the saddle he dug his heels in hard, setting the horse to a racing gallop through the snow it had already cleared. Over and over, that image flashed in his mind. Her back arched, her hands sliding down across her belly, her hair alight with the fire’s glow, and that sound. That mewling whimper that echoed in his ears. It was too personal, too sensual a sound for him to have overheard and it was seared in his memory. His wickedest conjurings filled in the scene. The fire warming her bare breasts, her hands roaming across her wet skin, caressing, teasing, delving between her thighs when that seductive ‘mm’ sound passed parted lips. In his fantasy, she knew he was there. Wanted him to come and join her. In his mind, he did. 

He pulled the horse to a stop, nearly driving them to tumble backward as it reared up on its hind legs. The animal pranced in a circle back and forth, irritated at having been driven so hard then pulled to a stop on a dime. Rex tore at his coat and scarf, tossing them into his lap and leaning down to dig up a scoop of snow, rubbing it over his face with both hands, the icy chill shocking his system but it did little to cool his tempestuous thoughts. Why had he done it? Guilt was as strong as lust in his heart and it was a dichotomy that was painful in more ways than one. He panted softly, each exhale a little cloud of steam. He could hardly soothe the ache the way he had yesterday. Not out here. Glancing back he saw he was a least a mile from the cabin, a small bump of darkness on the white landscape. “Enough.” He said aloud, though whether he was addressing the horse or himself, even he didn’t know. He pulled his coat back on and wound the scarf around before he dropped out of the saddle, the snow enveloping his long legs past the knees. “Come on.” He tugged at the animal’s bit and began the trek back to the cabin.


	6. Chapter 6

Frozen to the core, Regina had seen Rex taking off on the horse and came to the right conclusion. He was going to give the animal a little exercise before dinner. It’d do both of them good. She had the cabin to herself for a while she figured. A bath’s worth of water boiled while she started the dinner, she had just gotten into the tub when she thought she heard something. Listening quietly, she chalked it up to the wind and fully gave in to the seeping heat of water against her chilled lower half. Three hours she’d sat on that bank. She wouldn’t be surprised if she stood up to find her butt had melted clean off. Again the wind rocked the cabin, the canvas walls outside causing the iron supports to creak and the wood itself made little groaning noises. In a storm, this place was as about as quiet as the belly of a ship. She lifted handfuls of steamy water to pour over her shoulders and chest, basting herself like a bird in a pan. She chuckled at the thought. She poured clean water over her head and washed her hair, now that she knew she’d have a good few hours for it to dry, having no plans to leave for the next few days. They had meat to spare at the moment. She made sure before she got out that she’d cleaned every spot of blood from under her nails. She put her hair up and dressed for dinner before pulling the tub down the rutted wooden walk and dumping it out under the canvas. The empty tub hauled back and left down in case Rex might want a soak after his ride.

It was well into the evening when Rex appeared at the door. He’d walked back, changed out of his soaked clothes into his spare pair of jeans and his red bib shirt with the silver buttons. Usually he kept this only for church meetings or fancy saloons but it was all he had that was currently dry. He reached up to knock, but figured ‘why start now’. He opened the door with a sour taste of self-directed disgust and stepped inside, glad of the rush of warmth as he’d not brought his coat. 

“That you, Mr. Marksley?” She called from the bathing room, to which the door was open. 

“Um, yes, Ma’am.” He forced his voice to work. 

“I’ll be just a moment. Feel free to take off your coat and make yourself comfortable. Dinner was done a while ago, but I can warm it up.” She exited the back room, a smile on her face and he nearly swallowed his tongue. 

Gone was the wild hair, the doeskin trousers, the layers of men’s shirts. Her hair was smoothed back into a bun at the nape of her neck, and though bits still escaped, they now spilled in coy coils against her jawline and temple. She was wearing a skirt of simple brown corduroy and a high-collared blouse of thin ivory and light brown stripes. He was already aware she was a female. Now he saw just how much a woman she was. He’d noticed her graceful movement in the heavy work clothes, but now, in her ladies’ apparel, she was like a dancer drifting across the stage in a ballet. He realized he was staring and tore his eyes away. Unbidden came the image of her in the bath, that little kitten sound, between moan and gasp, echoed again through his head. He grit his teeth against the wave of desire threatening to overwhelm him. He glanced up at her as she passed. If she was aware of his discomfort, she didn’t show it. 

“Have a good ride?” She inquired politely, setting a pot of stew on the stove and stirring. 

He worked hard to keep his prurient side from weaving flights of fantasy in his mind, but he lost the fight. Like landscapes lit by a bolt of lightning, a whole scene appeared in a blink and then was gone. Of his mouth and her own locked in passionate kisses, of her against a wall, her skirt around her hips, his hands on her thighs as they wrapped around him. When she crossed the room and laid out the plates and he imagined himself behind, her, his hands over her breasts, pulling her back into his rutting. Vicious, wild scenes without any respite. His inner devil told him she would like it, that she wanted it too. Why else would she dress so pretty if not to entice him? “Why the getup?” He bit out, aware it sounded harsh, but he couldn’t help himself. 

“Oh, well, I mean, I don’t have plans to go outside the house tonight or tomorrow. I don’t need to dress for the snow if I don’t have to get in it.” She reached up and patted her hair, the action lifting her breasts faintly against the fabric and his belly clenched. “If I am going to put up my hair, it has to be damp.” She smiled and reached for the honey. “Did you get your door fixed?”

“I um…” He cleared the husk from his voice and nodded. “Yeah. I got a lot done in the barn. I’d show you but…” He knew it wouldn’t be safe for her out there. Hell, it wasn’t much safer for her in here. 

“But I’m hardly dressed for it.” She pouted a bit. “I’m sorry. I should have thought about that.” She moved past him to collect the stew and he caught the scent of her, warm and feminine, under the heavy air of meat and vegetables. “It’s dark out now. I’ll come see in the morning, alright?” She smiled consolingly up at him as she set the stew down on the table. 

Did she honestly think his mood was disappointment that he couldn’t show off the damn barn?! Didn’t she understand the danger she was in? He was going to do something, say something that would betray his thoughts. As unwelcome as the vulgar dreams were, the worse scenarios that flashed in his mind were the ones where her openness and trust turned to fear and disgust once she knew the truth about him. 

“It’s fine.” He sat and kept his eyes on the bowl before him. He was hungry but also sickened by himself so he only nibbled at the stew and cornbread she’d revealed from under a cloth. “You get many fish?” 

She began to talk, and he half listened. He was still brooding over his own folly. He glanced up at her, found himself too busy watching the way her mouth moved, the play of her tongue chasing a clinging crumb of cornbread from the corner of her lips, the way her hands moved as she illustrated how big the one she’d almost caught was. He nodded now and then, but kept silent. When she rose to clear the table, he didn’t dare stand up to help tonight. He grit his teeth faintly as she leaned down to collect his bowl, her skin and hair smelling of some mingle of flowers that eluded naming. Her breast brushed his shoulder as she stretched out her arm to claim the spoon. He sat utterly still, fearful his tenuous grip on his emotions would slip and he’d pull her into his lap. She was far too trusting. It wasn’t wise. He should warn her that what she was doing was going to get her in trouble sometime. He could guess it must be flirtation, but she was not at some church picnic, she was alone with a man who could, if he wanted, do her great harm. He held his tongue. Though barely knew her, he knew that it would be a very long winter if she stopped feeling safe around him. 

“About tomorrow.” He cleared his throat a bit. “Actually, I think I’ll go hunting. Leave early.” He found himself saying. The plan was being formed second by second, but he’d run with it. “Think you could pack me up some of that cheese for me to take with me?” He’d inspected the house, he knew it was down in the pantry. “It’d be a kindness.” He smiled in a way that he knew must be utterly unconvincing. 

“Of course.” She had rolled up her sleeves and even the sight of her bare forearms was more than he could bear at the moment. “Be up in a moment.”

He was in motion the moment she lifted the trap door and walked down the steps. He sprang up, adjusting his already alarming arousal. “Forgot my coat. Going to borrow the quilt for the night, I’ll bring it's back.” He called over his shoulder as he crossed the room. The quilt was folded and draped over his arm, that arm folded in front of him at the waist when she returned with the cheese. She waved at him in a ‘go on, take it’ way and sliced a chunk of the cheese off. She put it in with the rest of the cornbread and tied it up into a bindle. He tried not to focus on the sway of her hips as she approached and held it outward to him. His fingertips brushed hers as he took it, making them tingle faintly. “Thank you, Miss Chandler.”

You’re sure you won’t stay for dessert?” She looked back over her shoulder to the cake on the stand. He had completely forgotten about it. 

“I’m good.” he said faintly, feeling anything but. “Tomorrow, when I get back, maybe you can tell me what you think of the changes in the barn.” It was, after all, her property. “Night, Ma’am.” And he turned on his heel and fled into the cold. Even without his coat he waited outside the door until he heard the bolt slide over from within. Last night, he’d imagined her safe from some vague threat. Tonight, he was what she needed to lock herself away from. A visible sigh and he set the bindle down on the windowsill long enough to wrap the quilt around his shoulders. He could see her inside, putting the cover on the cake, looking a bit disappointed. Well, she must have worked hard on it and he’d spurned her offer. Tomorrow, he’d make a point to eat a very big slice. Tearing his gaze away, he headed back to the barn. 

Every step was torture, every movement dragging the fabric against his hardness. He’d no underwear but the pair which were hanging up in the barn now, and the denim was, if possible, worse than the silk against tender skin. Each twinge spawned fresh and torrid images of her as his lover. He’d known women aplenty in his time. Had a fair number of them for a night but none whose faces he could recall. Even trying to remember them only put her in their place. This obsession was going to make him mad. He knew she wasn’t the sort one dallied with. He would have to court her, woo her, earn her affections before he could dare even kiss her. He was a man of action. A hired gun who traveled the west without any ties. It would be unfair to her to lead her on. To make her think he was forever when all he would be was a way to drive off the cold of winter. 

The icy wind did its part in diminishing his ardor, the walking took care of the remainder. He still felt feverish and anxious, but at least he could blink without the reminder of just how nice it would have felt to have thrown the bread and the stew off the table and lay her out instead. A better dessert he could not imagine. Alone in his new room, laid out across his straw-filled bed, he should have been warm and comfortable. Instead he lay awake, running his fingers over the quilt’s stitching and letting his mind wander. This couldn’t continue. The next storm would be here soon, hadn’t she said so? He should just go. Take the horse in the morning and ride hell-bent for Silver Springs in hopes he could outrun it. She’d be left here alone, which he didn’t want, but the way his blood heated every time he thought of her, it was like a fox worrying over a hen’s safety. He knew that he would never act on his thoughts. He knew it sure as he knew his name and the feel of his pistol’s handle against his palm, but he couldn’t hide that he fantasized about her far too much. Her innocence would lose to her good sense and she’d realize what a depraved cad he really was. He warred between his gentleman’s desire to stay and protect her and his more lustful desires which were the reason he could not. She had selflessly offered him the warmth of her house, her good company, hot meals, but he couldn’t stay. He knew temptation would overtake his good intentions sooner or later. He tossed his arm over his eyes with a groan. Damnation! Outside his room the gelding nickered and he sighed. “Maybe you’ve got the better deal after all.” He turned to his side and frowned, forcing himself to sleep and not dream, but when he woke, it was to cold and sticky ignominy and the threads of half-remembered debauched scenarios.


	7. Chapter 7

As he’d promised, he slipped away from the cabin by early morning. He took his pistols and his rifle, intending to at least get a little practice in. He was bundled up, but the cold seemed to seep into his bones. In the woods, he took aim. He shot at clumps of snow on the tips of branches, the snow flying and the wood not even scratched. He shot every single pine cone off a tree twenty feet high and never hit a needle. It was preternatural how skilled he was, but he’d been born this way. It was his natural gift. 

Shooting cleared his head. It was calming and reliable. The crack of each gunshot echoed around him like a whispered chorus of reassurance that he had control. His mind now placid, he could think on his current troubles. He was an honorable man, but he was not a saint. Being so near to a woman who he was deeply attracted to was new territory. His life had been solitary up until now. Temptation was something he found rarely bothered him. Now it was going to be his constant companion. 

He couldn’t just up and leave. He knew that. Both for reasons of honor and the reality that it was too dangerous to risk losing his way in another storm. Though it had not hit them yet, he had no doubt it would by tonight, and even if he made it to Silver Springs, he would have no money to live on. So, he’d have to stay. 

Familiarity, they said, bred contempt. While he doubted it would ever go that far, when he’d had a few weeks of visiting with her every day, he’d more than likely see her as a person who happened to be female rather than a woman. He didn’t give himself enough credit. He wasn’t some rapacious cad unable to go a few weeks without humping something. He was Rex-Goddamn-Marksley, finest marksman in the west and he would be fine!

He settled in the saddle and laid the rifle across his lap. He probably ought to bring a deer back. It would provide plenty of meat and certainly, it would help in paying back the debt he owed to her. He spent the day tracking, but his shooting must have driven them further into the wood. If he followed, he might well get lost and then he was in as much danger as if he had ridden for town. The day dawned bright and far lest bestial, and it was almost pleasant to spend a day drifting along the edge of the woods, traversing the rolling plains of pristine white. It felt as though he had entered a strange alien world of crystal trees and alabaster hills, and his fancies drifted to things having nothing to do with anything remotely carnal. 

He made his way back as the sun began to sink toward the west. The closer he got, the more his concerns began to resurface. As if the weather was attuned to his mood, the clear sky began to collect dark clouds in the north that raced ever southward as he spurred his horse to a quicker pace. He reached the barn, taking care to sweep it out, to put fresh hay and water out for his horse. The saddle removed, his coat brushed, the guns cleaned and put away, it was evening before he forced himself to make his way to the cabin. 

The wind blew bitterly as he walked, the rope at his hip, his hands occupied with the nervous twisting of the checkered napkin that she’d wrapped the bread and cheese in. He felt strange walking up to the door tonight. A feeling of something brewing that wasn’t the rapidly coming snowstorm. He tried to shake the feeling as he mounted the porch and knocked politely at the door. When it was pulled open, he stepped inside and was overcome by the smell of freshly baked bread. He could see the loaves lined up on the table and his stomach gave a quiet grumble. 

He turned to give his greeting to his hostess when he noticed how wan she looked. Her eyes were reddened as if she’d been weeping, her usual cheery mood was gone, replaced with a heavy mein as chill as a wet woolen blanket. Her dress was different. Black twill skirt and vest and a crisp white cotton blouse. If not for her sad face, she’d have been very pretty. He opened his mouth to speak, to ask what was wrong but her hand shot up between them, palm to him, a sign for him to shush. 

“Please. Let me speak.” She cleared her throat faintly, her hands clasping before her waist, her eyes lowered. “I … I do not know what I have done, Mr. Marksley,that offended you. I only want you to know it was not intentional. I ask for your forgiveness for whatever I said or did that has upset you.” Her lip quivered a bit but she tightened her jaw and lifted her chin, meeting his gaze at last, defiant of herself more than him. 

“What?!” He blinked in confusion. “You... You didn’t offend me at all.” He felt a wave of sympathy. Had she spent all day thinking that he was unhappy with her? How could she think that? Almost instantly he recalled how he had been the night before. His words curt, his tone sharper than he’d intended. She had no way of understanding that he was angry at himself for being unable to get past his dirty mind. He wanted so much to take her in his arms at that moment. Not as a lover, but just to hold her and show her she was safe and there was no need for tears. “I …” He didn’t know how to proceed. “I am a man. A strange man.” 

“Ha! Yes, very strange.” She balled her fist at her mouth, biting down faintly as she looked up at him with apology in her eyes. She seemed ready to sink into hysterics as she stepped away to rest her free hand on the edge of the mantel, her back to him. “I’m sorry. Please, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

It was somewhat easier when he didn’t have to look into her eyes. “Well, yes, but not just that, I’m a stranger. You see, Miss Chandler, men are created a certain way. They get … ideas. Thoughts. And these thoughts, they aren’t always the most polite.” He continued twisting the napkin in his hands. “I swear to you, I would never hurt you.” He wanted so much for her to understand, but how could she? He drew a shaky breath and continued his confession. Perhaps it was best said. Put out there, and she’d surely understand better what sort of man he was. It would ruin the happiness he felt when she looked at him with that perfect acceptance and trust, but better he be watched warily than she be caught off guard. “You have been more than kind to me, Miss Chandler. You’re a good woman and a fine lady but, I don’t think you know how a show of kindness can make a man feel.” He dampened his lips. “How it can make him think of the wrong kind of attention.”

He wished she would turn around. She had lowered her balled fist to her side, her posture straight, her eyes focused on some point beyond the wall. The lamplight giving her profile a golden glow that caught in her hair and his fingers itched to undo the pins and run through the wild length and feel the curls twisting around them. The thought was hardly the most visceral of his sinful imaginings but it underlined just how necessary it was that he make her understand how dangerous it was to be beautiful and kind in a world that took advantage of those things. “Last night, I was angry only at myself. I was afraid you’d see my weakness and you’d hate me for it. I just…” he grit his teeth, so frustrated. “I don’t want you to feel you’re unsafe in your own home.” 

“When I was a little girl.” She spoke quietly and he strained to hear her, stepping closer out of necessity. “There was a book in a shop window. It was white and blue, I remember. It said ‘Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus’. I wanted that book.” She shrugged. “My mother loved mythology so I knew who Prometheus was. I suppose it’s rather improper for a girl to enjoy stories of a man having his liver devoured daily, but I wanted to know what this modern one’s tale was. I never told anyone but I coveted that book. It was all I thought about. Weeks and weeks went by and every night I lay awake, making up what I thought the story might be. Finally, my mother saw me moping and asked what the trouble was. I confessed and she laughed. She had a copy of the book already. It was in her room the whole time.” She reached up to the mantel and took down a book, white with blue writing, faded and often read by the look of it. Gently she petted its threadbare spine under her fingers. Her profile was pensive and sweet. Gingerly she put it back. “I devoured it in a single night. Nothing I had imagined was even close.” She cast a glance back across her shoulder at him. 

He had listened. He’d read the book himself, once. He remembered it being very deep and dark. The terrible line between what made a man a monster was shown to be thin as a razor’s edge. The wind howled outside, the storm finally arriving and he remembered all the Arctic ice in the book. Was she seeking to make some eloquent comparison between his lust and the creature’s desire for a mate? On the topic of dangerous obsessions? “I don’t understand.” 

She sighed and turned from the mantel, her eyes sharp. “I am saying, Mr. Marksley, you’re an ass.” She paid no need to his shocked expression and pushed on, her voice growing firmer. “It does you no good to want something and mope about it rather than just telling someone! You have sinful thoughts? Congratulations!” She threw her arms up. “Welcome to the human race!” She set her palms on her hips. “We’re all sinners.” 

“What?” He was driven off his pegs by her outburst. He couldn’t fathom what had gotten into her. He had expected tears. He had imagined searing, damp-eyed looks of recrimination and disgust. Disappointment and tremulous fear, but not this. She made him feel as he had when he had been young when his attempts to do something right had made a mess and he’d had to face the shaking fingers and lectures about using his brains for once. He was not a child now though, and as he would at any attack, he leaped to the defensive. 

“So... so I’m just supposed to tell you what I want?” His hackles rose at the tone of chastisement and anger in her voice. “I want you to keep thinking well of me. I want you to feel happy and safe and …” Did she want the truth? He’d give it to her. “Right now I want very much to kiss you quite hard on the mouth if only to give it something to do other than frown at me!” 

“Well…” She blinked at him and threw her hands up. “What is stopping you then? Afraid I’ll faint? Think I’ll break like some delicate little soap bubble? Worried I’ll slap you? I’d need to get a chair to even reach your face, you … giraffe!”

He was across the room in two strides, his hand at the back of her neck, bending it to turn her face up to his. He saw her eyes widen, felt her pulse racing under his palm, his thumb brushed her chin. “You can reach now.” His breathy murmur warm against her lips. The ravenous wild hunger he’d suffered from ebbed under a more luxuriant need to go very slow. He leaned down to kiss her gently, languidly. The moment his lips touched hers, he was lost. The tightness in her lips melted instantly to pliant warmth against his mouth. 

She sighed and he felt her return of that kiss, tentative and unsure but without shame. Her hands were at his chest, closed on the lapels of his coat as his free arm slid around her back. His tongue tasted the edge of her lips, sought to find her own, to drown in the flavor of her. It seemed hours before he broke the kiss, her breath and his both quickened as he lingered so close for another heartbeat or two. “Much better than frowning, yes?” He murmured softly, dipping to press a peck against the corner of her mouth. 

“Yes.” She answered so quietly that he felt it said more than heard it. 

“If I stay, I will definitely do that again.” He stood up slowly, stepping back and gently wrapping his hands around her wrists to lower her arms back to her side before letting go and widening the space between them. “And I won’t want to stop.” He needed her to understand. To fully grasp what he was trying to convey. “I might not even be able to stop. Passion’s a terrible thing. Makes a man’s primal needs stronger than his rational mind. I might hurt you.” He knew he’d never take what wasn’t freely offered, but he might well use every trick in the book to make her think she wanted it, consequences be damned. He again saw her as a doe without any knowledge that a hunter’s sights were pinned upon it. 

He held her eyes, waiting on tenterhooks for that moment when she realized his meaning. When she’d understand he wanted to do so very much more than kiss her. She’d be shocked and sickened and agree that it was best that he leave and never look back. 

“You’re afraid you’ll...” She chuckled softly, then again, louder, her hand covering her lips as her bright blues sparked with mirth. 

He gaped, confusion wracking his brain. Did he have to spell it out to her? He didn’t know if he could be _that_ brutally honest. 

“I don’t mean to laugh, Mr. Marksley, please…” She reached out and took hold of as his hand. “I am not a babe in the wood. I am fully aware of the existence of what lustful thoughts can influence in men.” She smiled through her blushing and dropped her gaze. It was obvious this was not easy for her. “But I know. I know that you won’t hurt me.” She met his gaze again, and he saw only resolve and, perhaps a flash of something more. “I could strip down naked right now and I would still feel safe. You’re a gentleman, Mr. Marksley. Not just a gentleman, a gentle man.” She let her fingers trail over his own as she let her hand fall, clasping it in her other before her. She dampened her lips with the tip of her tongue, blushing more deeply, her eyes averted for a moment, then they lifted, dark and curious. “I mean, between us, you’re the only one saying ‘no’ right now.”

He felt torn in a dozen different directions. He stepped back, shaking his head a bit to clear the rushing of his heartbeat out of his ears. “Miss Chandler.” He felt so overheated. His coat was stripped off in frustration and thrown to the ground. “Please, don’t tempt me!”

“I’ll stop when you do.” She was still laughing with her eyes. The grey had fled her face, the light that had been so dim when he entered was sparked and she was the same woman whose face haunted him. The woman whose body he craved, whose company made his mornings brighter. The woman who he wanted to make his own more than he wanted to take his next breath. Much as he wanted to, he suddenly felt uncomfortable. His fantasies had been brief flashes of the middle bits. He wasn’t sure how to proceed now. He only knew what she did. This was a road neither wanted to avoid. 

“I… I suppose I could try.” He chuckled himself. “Here, let me just…” he turned around and picked his coat up from where he’d thrown it, hanging it politely back on the hook. He opened his mouth to admit that was not sure how to move forward now that it was clear she wanted him to. Instead, his stomach growled loudly and he felt mortified. She laughed again and he chuckled, giving her a small shrug. “How’s that for not being tempting?”

“Well, it’ll have to do.” A grin playing at the edges of her lips. “Let’s have some dinner and we can just talk a bit.” She brushed past him and he caught her arm, leaning in to press a feather-light kiss to her cheek before he let her go. Though it was chaste, it burned through her like a little flame until it hit her toes, melting all the strength from her knees as it passed. She had warmed up the stew from the night before, the fresh bread sliced to go with it. Sitting across from him, she found herself unable to think of polite conversation that wasn't inane. “Tell me something of yourself, Mr. Marksley. I know so little about you.”

“Well, I suppose the most interesting thing about me is that I am a crack shot. I can hit a penny wedged halfway into the top of a fencepost from a hundred yards.” 

“But can you hit a dime?” She smirked over her soup spoon at him. 

“Yes, Miss Chandler, I think I could.” he could tell she was teasing him. It felt nice to just relax and not be afraid that she’d see a glint of lust in his eye and go running like a rabbit. He felt a bit foolish for having worried so about it, but he wasn’t used to women having any idea that sin even existed beyond coveting their neighbor’s flowers or the like. At least women who were as obviously innocent as she was. Despite her talk, he was pretty sure that had she known what he was thinking at those times she would have slapped him. Even if she had needed to get a chair. “Ever since I was a lad.” 

He leaned back and regaled her with the story of shooting up the pantry and the cows getting out. She was laughing and he felt light and unburdened. He finished his soup tonight and asked for a double slice of cake as he’d promised himself he’d do tonight. He watched her moving, wondering if she was aware of his eyes. Did she feel him tracing her figure, imagining what the cloth concealed? Every move of her body whispered grace. He made no attempt this time to avert his eyes when she looked back. He saw her wobble a bit, blushing as she turned back around quickly. He grinned to himself. She did now. He noticed how her steps changed then. More languid. Feline almost as she swayed toward him with a slice of cake. 

He sat up and took it from her hand with his right, his left wrapping around her wrist. Holding her eyes, his own dark as the deepest Oregon wilderness floor, a green and brown mingled to a loamy rich earth. “Thank you.” He bent his head over her hand and brushed his lips across her palm. Felt the flick of her finger twitch beneath his chin, her heart hammering under his fingers. He lifted his head and let her go. “Your turn.” He smiled softly. 

He blinked though when she grabbed his own wrist and made as if to do the same. “No no…” He laughed and caught her hand between his own. “I meant, your turn to tell me something about you.” He kissed her fingers softly before he let her go again. 

Mortified, she walked back to the other side of the table and sank down, covering her face with her hands for a moment. “Well..” She ran her hands down to steeple before her lips. “My mother was a good woman. She loved my father but he wasn’t the sort of man who does well in the city. I saw him often as I could, but he preferred his solitude. Inventors are like that I’m told.” As she spoke, the high color of embarrassment faded to her usual bisque hue. “Mother died when I was eleven. Struck by a beer wagon.” She smiled faintly. “Teetotaler her whole life, treasurer of the local temperance union, run over by a wagon full of beer.” She chuckled under her breath. “I don’t know.” She mused a moment. “If you’d have known her, you’d have seen how … right that was.” 

She rose and brought the water pitcher over, filling up both his near-empty glass and her own. “Anyway, mother’s died, father’s in no state to raise a child, and I had school. He paid for it, Lord bless him, until I was sixteen. I came out then and he taught me about mechanics and I taught him about eating more than once every three days and how to work a razor.” She eyed him a moment. “Have to teach you too.” Smirking as he reached up and rubbed at his growing beard. “I’d a certificate from Mrs. Esmeralda Staunton's School for Young Aristocratic Ladies, which meant almost nothing in Chicago but everything here. I made money in Silver Springs as something like a governess. I didn’t teach school things, but how to sit and how to speak and say nothing and … well, all the useless things that proper girls need to become pretty baubles to catch a man’s eye. “ She smiled again. “Job lasted a few years, but there was a little … issue.” She leaned in as if about to convey a secret. He found himself leaning in across the table to hear. She looked left and right as if seeking eavesdroppers before she whispered, back of her fingers held up beside her lips. “I’m not very good at being a bauble.” 

She sat back, holding her hands, palms outward to him “I like working with my hands. I don’t mind a good swear word if it’s used properly. I like trousers when I’m working outside in winter. If I know something, I’m not going to demur and bat my lashes and coo that of course, the sun revolves around the earth because my husband says so.” She sobered a moment, but the smile was quick to return “I am too contrary to be withstood.” She sat back and shrugged, fidgeting a bit. “Sorry. Mine wasn’t as funny as yours.” 

While she was talking, he was content to just drink her in. He was sorry to hear about her mother, but the irony of a temperance woman being killed by beer was, he agreed, somewhat amusing, if darkly so. The mention of his beard had him scratching at his jaw. He had been, perhaps, avoiding it unconsciously. As if the act of shaving was preparation for seduction. He’d take care of it in the morning. She talked about her past and he could envision it as easily as he’d imagined other things. Of her, a most proper voice, instructing a young lady how to lift her pinky when sipping tea or how to bite back the urge to slap someone for being rude, and instead, rise above it. He agreed though, she was no bauble. Even without her telling him so, he could not imagine her bending her will to some husband who would demand his own way and who gave not even a tinker’s dam for her feelings. 

He followed her fingers with his gaze, watching them idly moving against her blouse, twisting at the button just below her bustline. His brain devil was allowed free reign, and every thought was fed to bursting. He was going to show her every way that pleasure could be wrung from a person. He wanted her tousled and sweaty and pleading for mercy and more in the same breath. He wanted to have her then and there, jump over the table and do it right on the hard floor, but the thought of making her feel as desperate as he felt, it was a far more fulfilling idea. He’d suffered for days with wanting her. Let her suffer a little too. 

He finished the last of the cake on his plate. “It was a fine story. The cake was good too.” He made certain she noticed that he noticed her fingers at her blouse button, hiding a smirk when she dropped her hand as if she’d been a child caught sneaking a cookie. He lifted his eyes and adopted that low purr he’d used on her when he was still thinking of seduction as a way to get his pants _on_. “Do you want me to go?” 

As if God himself was on Rex’s side, a wild wind buffeted the front of the house, icy sleet striking the windows as they rattled, the wood creaking menacingly. He saw her jump and look toward the windows, then back at him. He had every intention of going, but he could tease her a little bit, even if it meant his night would be less comfortable, so he let every prurient thought have a bit of freedom to show itself in his face. As he hoped, she blushed. 

“I mean, it is pretty bad out there.” Her voice cracked a bit and she took another sip of water to cool herself and wash away the huskiness that had tried to overtake her. 

He stood up slowly, moving around to her side of the table and offering his hand. “Come on. Dishes will wait until the morning.”


	8. Chapter 8

He was not one for courting. Years spent in the parlor of some girl’s parents, sitting across the room with sweaty palms for hours at a time until you were allowed to ask her father to marry her, at which time you might… _might _ be allowed to sit on the porch alone, perhaps hold hands or dance at a barn raising. He had visited houses of ill repute now and then. Girls who didn’t cotton to a lot of chit-chat, just an exchange of time for money. This, it was somewhere in the middle. 

His hand in hers, he drew her to walk with him. Not counting the chairs at the table, there was only one other proper place to sit, and that was the rocking chair. Instead, he lead her toward the cot that he’d occupied when he first awoke here. Settling down onto it, he felt her balk. 

“I thought you believed me a gentleman?” Letting go of her hand and patting the blanket-covered surface beside him. 

“I do.” Her lip captured between her teeth and he was overwhelmed with the recollection of how those lips had felt beneath his own. He folded his hands in his lap and glanced to the spot, then back to her. He showed no outward signs of the inner triumph he was feeling when she sat down, the small cot creaking a bit as she settled. 

“If it’s too awful for me to be going out, I assume I will sleep here?” He slid his palm over the bed behind her, not touching, but the motion angled him to lean against her faintly. She smelled so very nice. Not like a lady. Nor like a harlot. They smelled of perfume and powder and she smelled like bread and warmth and something primal and feminine. His hand left the blanket and lifted to her shoulder, the few errant curls that had escaped the pins were brushed away as he leaned in, lips lightly skimming the edge of her jaw, pressing tenderly over and again in a path toward her earlobe. "Will you tell me a bedtime story?" 

She twitched and shivered, a little sound in her throat unbidden, a whimper and a moan blended to something desperate and low. “I… I could, if… if you think that would help.” Her voice forced to sound calm and unmoved by the fiery trail he was weaving along her skin. 

“Mmm, I bet you know all the good ones.” He closed his eyes and drew back, lips near her ear. “What story do you think will suit tonight best?” He grinned as he leaned back, his hand moving to her chin to turn her head to face him, making no attempt to hide the hunger in his gaze as he lost himself in the darkened blues so bright, betraying her fear as well as her curiosity. “Do you know…” he dipped his gaze to her lips, then back to her eyes. “Three little pigs?” His fingers still on her chin, he held her still as he leaned in again, his breath heated against her skin. “Little pig, little pig.. Let me come in.” A low breathy growl. 

“N-not by the hair on my… chinny chin chin…” She swallowed hard and leaned back, sliding away and moving a step from the bed, her arms wrapped around herself.

He could see the flex of her rapid breathing as she stood, head bowed. He was the very devil if he did not go right now. He rose, all good intentions crushed under the need to kiss her again, to hold her, to taste her. He stood behind her, his hands moving along her upper arms. “Perhaps you have a point.” He turned her slowly and let the tip of his tongue slide between his lips as his eyes ravaged her face. “Wolves are a little scary right before bed, hmm?” He stepped and she moved back in instinct, he followed and two steps later, she bumped into the wall and he smiled again. His large hands slid downward, over her arms to her hands, lifting both toward his lips. 

“Leaves out Little Red Riding Hood too.” He brushed his unshaven chin over her knuckles, a sensation that wasn’t all that unpleasant to him and judging by her widened eyes, lifted brows, parted lips…. She liked it too. “No.” He slowly let her hands go. “I know just the one.” He pressed closer and put his palm on the wall over her shoulder, pinning her there with only proximity. His free hand rose to her temple, index tracing downward along her cheek until he found a loose curl and wound it around his finger. “Goldilocks.” he bent his head downward, his prickling chin brushing her cheek and she turned away, baring her ear to catch what his lips murmured. “Somebody’s been sleeping in my bed.” She whimpered and he felt her slide a bit on the wall, victim to the weak knees he’d hoped he’d spark. “And she’s juuust right.” 

Her hands rose to his chest and he sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. Every part of him was aware of her nearness, like a compass needle flicking towards the north of her. He could almost see the future. Hear her moans, feel her body against his, damp with sweat, warm, so soft against him, a promise of satisfaction fulfilled. She was the forbidden fruit, and all he had to do was reach out and take her. Taste her. Devour her. 

“Do you trust me?” Nuzzling her cheek gingerly so not to scratch her up, his hip pressing needfully against her, she could not be ignorant now of what she had done to him. 

She nodded very slowly, almost a nuzzle in return. “I trust you.” her whisper awash in nervousness and the desire he could almost taste in her skin. 

“Then trust me when I say you had better lock the door with me on the other side of it.” He pinned her against the wall, his greater strength and hard edges ground slowly against her. “For in all those stories there’s a big hungry predator just waiting to devour the little succulent morsel.” He did bite her earlobe then and the sound she gave in return made his blood turn to quicksilver in his veins. Hers weren’t the only knees devoid of strength at the moment. She wasn’t unwilling, but she was an innocent. She didn’t know that she was playing with something far more all-consuming than fire. “Please, Regina, go.” He pushed his palms to the wall as if he had to shove himself away to give her the space to escape. It wasn’t too far from the truth. 

He closed his eyes and stood, his hands at his side in fists. He could hear her breathing so close. _ ‘Don’t touch me. Touch me and we’re both lost’_ he prayed inwardly as he heard and felt her move, but no touch came. He heard a soft thump and then the cadence of feet up the attic stairs. The creak of the floor above was all he needed to put him in motion. He walked to the door and grabbed his coat, wrenching it on as he stepped out and pulled the door tightly closed behind him. 

The wind was razors and cold-fire, ice blowing into every pore as he gripped the glazed rope and made his way back to the barn. Even inside, his breath was visible, and he would, he knew, have to find some way to heat it. Tonight, however, he felt he could set the place on fire with only the memory of her mouth. He sank down on his makeshift bed and hung his head, tears of frustration chilling his cheek. “Tomorrow… I will have her tomorrow.” He inwardly promised that devil on his shoulder while he whispered to the angel on the other that he’d say that every day, so tomorrow never came. He laid down and pulled her quilt around his shoulders, unsure which of them he was lying to. 

~ ~ ~ ~ 

He woke shaking, shivering so hard his teeth rattled in his head. He could barely make his body move, every joint seeming frozen. He pulled the quilt around him more tightly and wriggled down into the hay in hopes it would warm him. Damn his lanky frame! The storm was wild still. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, but it sounded like hail striking the wood. Banging. A cadence too evenly spaced to be weather. He drew his pistol from his hanging hoster and moved toward the door, then a small voice rose above the storm. 

“LITTLE PIG, LET ME COME IN!” 

He gasped, stumbling back in the dark to fetch his lantern and strike the match to light it. She could not possibly be that foolish! He pulled the door open, Regina stumbling into the middle of the barn as he did. She looked over her shoulder at him, one hand pressing at a stitch in her side, panting with the effort of getting here. “Supposed… to say… not...hair.. chinny … chin chin.” She chuckled softly and fought to catch her breath. “Don’t think I … could huff or puff.. Right… right now though.” 

He was thunderstruck. He was angry and worried more than he was feeling anything sensual at the moment, but as her bright blues gleamed over the reddened nose and cheeks, her smile so broad as she panted, that was shifting even in this icebox. “What are you doing out here!” 

She rubbed at the loosening cramp as she straightened. “Would you believe wolf hunting?” She saw by his narrowed eyes and glowering that this was not a time for jokes. “It’s too cold out here, Mr. Marksley. Come back to the house. Bring your things. By tomorrow you’ll be snowed in. You could be days without food or heat. It’s not safe.”

He wanted to argue. To be noble. To say that if his horse could do it,so could he.. But he knew better. The beast was several hundred pounds and had ample hay and the warmest of the stalls already. When he’d opened the door, he could see the snow was filling in the path and by morning the barn, already half buried in the ground, would be completely under the snow. That would insulate the building and keep what warmth there was inside. He could come out the moment the storm ended and check on things. If he remained here, he’d catch his death. 

“Fine.” He quickly gathered up his things. His bedroll and journal, his gun belt strapped around his narrow hips, pistols slipped into their holsters and strapped in, his spare jeans and shirt, everything he thought he’d need all bundled up in the quilt and tucked up beneath his arm. The howl of the storm outside kept his thoughts from drifting. He wrapped his head and lower face with the scarf and pulled the collar of his coat up. Pulling open the door, he pushed through the snow, her footprints almost obliterated already. 

Reaching back, he grabbed a hold of her and pulled her close. “Wrap your arms around my waist!” He shouted above the storm. He wasn’t going to have her fall into a snowdrift. She did so, and he wound one arm around her at his side. It was the least romantic walk with a woman he’d ever taken. Even pressed close he had not a single thought of anything other than getting her back into the cabin where she’d be safe. It was hard going, but he was glad of the rope. He had to let her go so he could pull himself hand over hand. He felt her let go and panicked, but she moved behind him and grabbed the rope, following suit. 

“You clear the path, I’ll walk in your footsteps!” She was being sensible, again. He was quite happy with her independent streak. He found the porch, and pulled her up onto it, stumbling with her to the door and through, slamming the door behind them. 

The room was aglow, warm and welcoming as always. “You put your things away.” She stripped out of her coat and pulled the boots off, shaking out the snow, her voice almost maternal. A voice to be obeyed. “Get out of your wet things. There’s water in the back room on the boil. Take a nice hot bath and you’ll feel better.” She shooed at him and he felt compelled to let her have her way for now. “I’m putting on some coffee.” 

He thought it best to follow her commands, as he was wet to his skin and everything felt numb. He dropped the quilt-bound bundle of his things onto the cot as he passed into the washing room. He stripped off his coat and gloves, his boots and jeans and his shirt, but he kept on his underwear. At least for now. 

As promised the kettle was steaming over the roaring fire and he took it with a towel and poured into the bathtub. He refilled it and returned to the fire as he added cold to the boiling water in the tub until it was the right temperature to soak his feet while he waited for another kettle-load. “What about you?” He called through the open doorway. 

“I’ll be fine.” She appeared at the door with a mug cupped in her hands and her eyes squeezed shut. “I plan to change soon as you’re soaking.” 

He couldn’t help but smile at her. Not that she could see it. “Why do you have your eyes closed?” He gently took the mug from her fingers. “It isn’t as if you’ll see something you’ve never seen before.” 

She blushed. “I’m just being polite.” 

“You’re safe, I’m still mostly dressed.” He took a sip of the strong coffee and watched her give a quick peek before opening her eyes fully. “Trust me, if our positions were reversed, I’d not even blink.” 

She just shook her head and walked out. He could hear her moving around in the main room. He added the second kettle to the bath and then one full one unboiled, another dip in the water barrel and he set that on over the fire to use for later. He undid the buttons of his long underwear and stepped out of them, sinking gingerly into the tub. It was too small to do more than sit in, spread-legged, submerged only from the waist to the top of his thighs. He couldn’t fold himself up like she could. Back came that memory and he pushed it away as the door was still sitting faintly ajar and now was not the time for diddling about. 

Though he wasn’t able to soak his body in the water, he was soaking in heat. The fire was high and he was certainly not going to be chilled long. He heard the ladder thump against the opening to the loft and figured she was heading up to change as promised. He dunked a washcloth and rubbed at his chest and legs, his pits and neck and nethers, splashing about but as hot as the fire was, the floor would dry quickly. All his extremities were clean and warm as he climbed out and briskly dried himself off. It was then he realized all his clean clothes were out in the main room. He’d just have to risk getting caught he supposed. 

Peeking out, he saw nobody and in a flash he had pulled the bindle to him and fetched out his shirt and jeans. Closing the door, he laid them across the stool. He dunked the pitcher and poured half a basin of water, then added the boiling until steam was rising. He remembered the razor, and a few minutes later, he was dressed, clean shaven, his hair combed… it was the finest he’d ever looked at ten forty-five at night, if he did say so himself. 

A knock sounded at the door. “Mr. Marksley, are you decent?”

He opened the door and rested one arm against the jamb over his head in a casual lean. “Not even a little.” he winked, just funning her. 

She smirked and rolled her eyes a bit. “You’re an ass.” There was no viciousness in the word though. “I don’t think you can sleep in that.” She offered up a folded bit of clothing. “I do have a trunk of my father’s things still. Most of them won’t fit you, he was only a bit taller than me. Nightshirts though I thought maybe you could use.” 

He took the folded nightshirt and looked from it to her. “So, you want me to take off my clothes again? Good lord woman, you’re insatiable!” He gasped in mock affront, then grinned crookedly at her. She’d changed her clothes as promised, but only her pants. She’d pulled on a skirt of calico but still wore the shapeless layers of shirt he supposed must have been her father’s. “I will undress later. I’m not tired just now.” Her nearness was a temptation, and he saw her realize it. She retreated and he followed. He stopped after a few steps and turned to go lay the nightshirt on the cot. “I didn’t say thank you.” He looked her way. 

“It’s just a nightshirt.” Her voice soft. 

“For that, yes, but more for coming to get me. For the bath. For … all you’ve done for me.”

“Oh, well.. You’re welcome.” she shrugged.

Guileless. She was unaware completely that she was perfection. He let his eyes hold hers for a long series of heartbeats. “I’m going to kiss you if you don’t go to bed right now.” He was stating a fact. It was a warning, yes, but not idly given. The only thing that would keep him away from her was her will. His desires were plain as he could make them. If she were surprised, she hadn’t been paying attention. 

“I have to … you know.” She gave a flick of her chin toward the open door behind him.

“I suppose that is worthy of a grace period.” He smiled as politely as he could. “Go on. I’ll … distract myself with cake or something.” She walked around him and into the bathing room closing the door behind her. He didn’t hear it latch and a moment later, he heard the other door close. She’d been in stocking feet, so he was fairly sure this wouldn’t be a lengthy trip. 

Barefoot himself, he padded over to the cot and cleared up his things, laying out his bedroll and the quilt and setting the rest aside. He heard the far door close. Listening carefully, he could hear rustling and footsteps, then a quiet rippling of water. Peeking through the same hole he’d used before, he saw her standing in the firelight, her socks in one hand, his clothes draped over her other arm. She was standing in the water tub, warming her feet. Hardly sinful, but yet he found it as erotic as it was endearing. Everything about her pleased him. She stepped out and he pulled away from the door, tiptoeing to the kitchen as fast as he could to adopt a casual seat at the table, his long legs stretched out before him, crossed at the ankles, his fingers laced over his stomach. 

“You left your guns in there.” She had the gunbelt over her shoulder, along with the belt from his discarded jeans and his gloves. All the leather that might be ruined by water. Laying them gently on the foot of the cot. “I was thinking. I think I’ll do laundry tomorrow.” She spoke as casually as if they were meeting on the street and discussing their weekend plans. 

He cocked his head a bit, narrowing his eyes. “How many shirts do you have on?”

She blinked at him, her expression hesitant. “Um… five? No four, I think? I dressed in a hurry.” 

He waved it off. “No need to worry, you can take your time when you remove them.” He locked eyes with her. “Now, I have been exceptionally patient. Grace period ending in ten seconds. Scoot…” he glanced to the stairs up to the attic. “Or pucker up. Your choice.” He’d not shifted from his stretched out lean in the chair, looking up at her with both teasing amusement and the underlying sureness that teasing wasn’t the same as kidding. He meant every word.


	9. Chapter 9

She twitched, blinked twice in rapid succession, dampened her lips nervously, but she did not flee. “I have…” She swallowed. “I thought about it after you left. Not _only_ after you left, I admit I’ve thought about it before, but I gave it true honest consideration tonight.” She walked toward him slowly, as she unburdened herself. “I am not sure I will like it.” She admitted frankly. “I may not. I want to try though. Frankenstein was better than I could have imagined and so maybe this might be too.” She stopped before him, her arms folded across her chest as she looked down at him with trepidation and excitement warring for dominance. 

He had never heard a woman speak so plain. He lifted his hands to hers, pulling her gently down onto his knees sidesaddle as his arms wrapped around her gently. He could see how much tension was in her even before he touched her and he sought to banish it. His hands ran across her arm, petting, soothing, just breathing her in, “Honey, I won’t ever ask anything of you that you don’t already want to give.” He felt the tightness in her frame loosening, her body slowly melting against his chest until her cheek rested on his shoulder. “There...that’s better.” He couldn’t see her, but he could feel and hear her breath on his neck, slightly shaky, but slow and calm. 

He wove his fingers between her own. “Suppose you tell me about the times before tonight.” Petting the back of her knuckles with his thumb. “The times you thought about this before.” He smiled and hoped she could feel it, hear it in his tone. 

“It’s silly.” She gave his hand a squeeze, and he could hear the reticence in her voice. “You’ll laugh.” 

“I might.” He confessed. “Especially if they’re as silly as you claim. But I won’t laugh at you. I promise.” 

“Alright. The other night, the first night you were here. The night when I found you, I um… I imagined you were like sleeping beauty.” He felt the blush against his neck as she buried her face there. “I would kiss you and you’d wake up and tell me you were a secret prince and I was the fairest maiden in the land and you wanted me to ride away with you and … all that.” She chuckled.” Then I saw that you were naked under that blanket when I did try to shake you awake and…” He felt her tense up and resumed his soft petting. “I was already thinking on that line of silliness and you were laying there and you said ...I obviously I hadn’t kissed every sleeping part and so… I did.” She buried her burning face in his neck.

Rex did not, to his credit, laugh. It was obviously something that had been hard for her to speak aloud and he wanted to encourage her to tell him private things. Secrets that she would never tell anyone else. What pleased her, what she craved, and if he ruined that trust now, he might never get it back. “Well, I don’t remember that part of the story.” He pressed her to sit back up so he could look into her eyes. “I promise though, I would read it over and over.” He brushed his fingers across her cheek. “What happened next?” 

“I stopped being a ninny and drug you over to the cot and got you situated so you could rest. Then I went for a nice long walk to pray for forgiveness and get my chores done.” Her palm was resting on his chest, his heartbeat strong under her fingers. “You know, it’s been a lot more than ten seconds. Seem to recall you’re owed.” She appeared to steel herself and then her head moved to claim his mouth with her own. 

It was like throwing a can of kerosene on a campfire. He went up in flames instantly. Groaning into the kiss, he pulled her against his chest, wanting her close as his own skin. Her hands slid into his hair, petting through the raven strands as she wriggled in his lap, a slow, needful sway of her hips that begged when words could not. His tongue slipped between her teeth, her own moving to meet it, to taste him, drowning in the feeling of her every part going liquid against him, molding to him as if created for that sole purpose. 

As much as he wanted to just scoop her up and throw her onto the table to have his wicked way with her, he held back, letting her lead, he had cleared the way through ice and snow, let her blaze the trail through heat and flame. She pulled his head back, the kiss now broken, her lips fell to his jaw, his neck, his chin, raining kisses, nibbles, little nips that made him shudder and gasp, staring up at the ceiling, suffering in the aching want and unbelievable pleasure. 

“Don’t stop.” He ran his hands up along her sides, then down to cradle her hips. He was sinking in the pleasure and he didn’t want to ever draw another breath that didn’t taste of her. Her fingers scratched at his scalp lightly, her teeth closing gently on his earlobe. Behind closed lids, his eyes rolled back. “Do you know what you’re doing to me?”

She paused in her nibbling. “Pleasing you?” She sounded hopeful as if she wasn’t sure. 

“Oh, you’re doing more than that.” he chuckled, a rumble deep in his throat as she ran the velvet of her tongue across his Adam’s apple. “I’m sure you’re aware of that by now.” He shifted his hips, the evidence of his arousal impossible for her to ignore as she rested against it. 

She lifted her head, looking into his eyes. “Does it hurt?”

He chuckled faintly. “Well, honestly all crushed up in these jeans, it’s not exactly comfortable, but it’s not...OH SWEET LORD!” he hadn’t expected her palm to fall to lay against the taut fabric. Her fingers curled, nails skittering in vibration over the denim and he arched his head back. “Damn it, woman, I’m going to ruin these jeans if you don’t stop that” It took every fiber of his being at the moment not to surrender to the promise of ecstasy. He stared up at the ceiling, feeling the weight of her palm but she’d stopped the teasing scratches. When he gained control he looked down at her. She sat staring at his crotch as if she were afraid it might bite her if she moved. 

He lifted her hand and smiled consolingly. “It’s okay. You just surprised me. If I did ruin the jeans, I’d just take them off.” He hoped he hadn’t frightened her, but her cheeks were flushed and he thought he saw something of the triumphant in her eyes. She was learning her power. That she was capable of bringing him to his knees and making him crawl if she wanted to. It would make her a better lover if she understood that. Casually he plucked at the bottom button of her shirt. “Speaking of taking things off, you could probably remove one or two of those shirts.” 

“It _is_ quite warm, now that you mention it.” She slid off his lap and turned on the ball of her foot with that easy grace of hers. He shifted in his chair, watching intently. He thought, at first, that she was having issues. She undid the button slowly, letting the tension linger where the hard button strained at the hole and then popped through, allowing another inch or two of open space. He realized three buttons down that she was doing it on purpose. 

Every button he leaned forward a little bit each time in tightened anticipation until it was free of its binding and she moved to the next. She was teasing him. He swallowed hard and when she reached the last he lifted his eyes. She turned slowly, sliding the faded flannel down her shoulders, letting it slip from her arms, catching it in her fingertips just as the shirttail hit the ground. She tossed it aside and as slowly as before, worked her way up the line of buttons. The thinner cotton shirt undone from bottom to top rather than the other way around. With every button undone, the fabric was pulled aside like curtains at the theater. Under it was her white blouse, and beneath that, well, he wagered not a hell of a lot. The last button plucked loose and she arched her back, sliding the shirt off to be tossed with the other one. She was reveling in her hold over him it seemed. Her smile seductive. “You did say I could take my time removing them.” 

His hands were clenched white-knuckled around the ends of the chair’s arms. “Don’t move, or I swear ...” He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, taking several deep breaths. He opened them slowly, his tongue racing across his lips. “I know you’re not used to this. You might not know what you’re doing to me, so I want to be clear.” He rose from the chair very slowly, each inch urged until he was at his full height and looking down at her as he moved to close the distance. “All I can think about is you.” He circled slowly around her. “I want to know every inch of you by sight, by touch, by taste.” He ran his fingers along her cheek, brushed his lips across her exposed neck. His palms slid over her waist, moving to tug her shirt free of the skirt. “You’ve bewitched me.” He undid her buttons, pressing her back into himself, sure she could feel the dig of his groin into her spine. “Ever since I saw you standing over me, all wild and covered in snow….” he chuckled and bent to nip at her neck. “Pointing your rifle at me. I thought, ‘Rex, this girl is going to be the death of you’.” 

He pulled her shirt back, tugging it down her arms in desperation. Beneath it was only the thin cotton chemise, barely there at all, her hardened nipples visible through the cloth. “Sweet Lord you’re so damn beautiful. “ He curved his arm around her waist, turning her to face him. His fingers curled under her chin and gently forced her to look up at him. “Take mine off.” He lowered his hands to his side and forced himself to stillness. Her fingers were shaking as she began undoing the buttons on the bib of his shirt. Her eyes on her work with an intensity he felt too. When the bib was undone enough to fold over, she started on the real buttons it had hidden. His hands in tight fists as she took as much time with his shirt as she had her own. 

When she reached his waist, she ran her palms up across his belly, sliding over his rib cage, over his breastbone and back down to finish tugging the shirt free. “When I saw you.” She murmured softly. “I wanted to touch you like this. I shouldn’t have, I … I didn't. I promise that I was very respectful.” She glanced up at him. “I don’t want to be respectful now.” 

“You don’t have to be.” His muscles were tight under the pale skin, burning up with the effort of giving her this time without snatching her up and taking her right there. He closed his eyes as her fingers moved back up over his chest, catching his shirt and pushing it down off his shoulders. To do so, she had to lean against him and he whimpered faintly at the brush of her breasts against his belly, her breath on his chest as, at last, the shirt fell to the floor. Her lips brushed lightly across his breastbone and he snapped.

His hands shot up and took her head between his palms, tipping her head back as his feel to ravenous kisses, devouring her mouth, needing to be inside her if only with his tongue. Her return of the kiss was swift and full and he was dying and living more than he’d ever done at the same damn time. 

Her arms encircled his neck and he dropped his hands to curve under her backside and lift her up against his waist. His long legs carried them to the nearest wall. Pinning her there, groaning into her mouth as her her skirt was tugged and bunched up until he could wedge himself between her thighs, feeling her, hot and damp, pressed against his aching package. Thank God for split tails! 

He threw his head back and grit his teeth. He needed to bury himself so deep inside her that she’d never get him out. Her arms held her up, his hand dug between them, working the buttons of his jeans loose until he was free of the confines. He bit his lip, wanting to memorize her face. He guided himself to her, his breath catching as the first touch of that liquid heat burned skin already oversensitive. So very slowly, he pushed against her, feeling her stretch and spread around him, so tight and hot and slick. He grit his teeth and sucked a quick breath through them. 

“Oh, God.” She wriggled against him as if escape were possible. His hands curled under her rump again and pulled her against him as he pressed forward, taking another inch. So tight! It almost hurt him to take more of her, but to feel her body bending to his will was better than the pain. He couldn’t live outside of her anymore. He leaned to kiss at her neck. “Wrap your legs around me.” His strokes short and slow, torment of the best sort but he needed more. He needed all of her. Hesitantly her legs lifted to wind around his waist, her ankles crossing just above his backside. 

“It’s too much.” She whimpered as he dug deeper, feeling her resisting his forward motion again. “I’ll die.” Her voice filled with fear, her body wracked by tension.

He was dying himself. He paused though, knowing deep inside that the thing he feared, that he might take what she didn’t offer freely, was so very possible. Poised at the edge of heaven he took a long slow moment to cherish it, then pulled himself away, leaning against her, his length pinned between his belly and her soft mound. With gentle fingers he pet down her thigh’s outer edge, soft as breath, feeling the panic, the uncertainty. He carefully lifted her into his arms and stepped back from the wall. As he lowered her back to her feet, he sank to kneeling in front of her, her hands on his shoulders to keep her upright on legs that were still shaky. Gazing up at her his hands slid from under her skirt and he tucked himself away with aching regret. 

She was trembling and he wanted to console her, but words wouldn’t come. For long seconds neither moved. He closed his eyes, trying to drive away the gnawing beast that was, even now, screaming for him to take what he needed. Her fingers slid through his hair, a simple touch and it both inflamed and soothed his desire.

Rising to his feet he stepped back, his fingers curled around her waist to draw her to move with him, backing into the chair he’d occupied earlier. His knees parted, he pulled her to stand between them, his hands sliding up her back to encourage her closeness. 

His lips brushed against her stomach and he heard her gasp softly. His fingers lifted to the bottom ribbon of the thin chemise. “There is no hurry. I’m not going anywhere,” he purred as he lifted his gaze back to her face. With torturous slowness he pulled the end, the bow’s loop shrinking until it gave. Equally slowly he did each bow until there was a wide gap between the halves where the smooth alabaster of her skin was bared. The only sounds were the wild storm outside and their breathing, quickened and soft. 

His tongue darted between his lips, the smooth plane of her waist beneath his palms, sliding upward under the loosened fabric. Curving over the swell of her breasts, he groaned aloud and bit his lip to stifle further sounds. Everything in him was clawing and desperate but he needed, for her sake, to do all he could to make her feel the same. He slid higher, over her shoulders, guiding the chemise down her arms. “So beautiful.” He murmured as he ran his hands up her arms, over her collarbones, her breasts, her ribs. Every bit of her was his to taste, as much as his loins wanted release, he wanted this, to slowly and completely know her. Every ticklish spot. Every place that he could touch and make her melt. 

His palms at her back pulled her closer and downward faintly, his eyes closing as he ran the flat of his tongue across her nipple, felt her jump, drew back to watch the pink flesh harden, glinting with the damp of his saliva. His hand slid to capture her breast, cradling, kneading the firm flesh as his lips rained kisses against the skin, drawing that puckered nub into his mouth to suckle. He heard her moans and reveled in them as much as the taste of her, the feel of her. Trailed kisses found the other, his palm covering the first as his other hand gently mauled this one. He captured the sensitive peak between thumb and forefinger, rolling and plucking until he wrung a desperate sound from her, so like the one he’d overheard in her bath. “Speak to me.” He growled gently against her breast, looking up at her. “I want to know.”

She couldn’t think, much less talk. Her head was swimming. “I… what should I say?” She was so weak in the knees she was amazed she hadn’t fallen over a dozen times. Her fingers slid through his hair, cradled him against her as his tongue and teeth and fingers wrought pleasure out of the ache that had plagued her breasts all night. 

“Whatever comes to mind.” He smiled against her breast before again suckling at her tender nipple. 

“Oh mercy!” She squealed and tightened her grip in his hair, pulling him to her, bending her back to offer herself to that torment that sent electricity straight to the core of her. 

“You like that?” He teased as he slid to the other. “You can say that then.” He flicked at her skin with his tongue’s tip like a serpent seeking a meal’s scent on the air. 

“I.. like that.” She blushed but somehow felt a little thrill too. “Your mouth on my breast. I like it.” 

She was going to be the end of him. Her soft voice admitting it, it was hotter than any flame. He nodded against her and gave her what pleased her. Her gasps, her pliant figure melting into him, the power to steal the strength from her legs until she was jelly in his hands, it was heady and aroused him on a deeper level than just base lust. He pulled his head away and reached up to encircle her wrist and remove her hands from his hair, urging her to sit back where she had been in his lap. His fingertips brushed her jaw and drew her to kiss him again, the taste of her lips was intoxicating and he wanted to be drunk on them always. As they kissed his arm draped across her back to cradle her as his other hand moved over her breasts, her belly, her sides, her throat, her arms. Her skin was so damn soft. 

He broke the kiss, his lips parted from her own by only an inch. “Lift your skirt for me.” He brushed her knee and lifted the fabric a bit, but let it slide back down into place. She tensed up, and he could feel her want and her uncertainty fighting it out, the former seeming to win as, so damn slowly, she began bunching up the fabric, inch by inch. 

She paused at mid-thigh, her breath shivery. He dropped one hand to her bare thigh, sliding over the satin flesh. He could feel how tight she had them pressed together. He could be patient now. The throbbing want was, if not cooled, then banked to a lower, deeper fire in his belly that heated his blood without consuming him. Gingerly he ran his fingers over her knee, across the top of her thigh soothing petting motions as murmurs of consolation were made against her temple. She whimpered and turned her head away. “What’s wrong.” 

“It’s shameful.” She sounded so forlorn.

“What is? This?” He kissed her hair, the only thing he could reach without moving. “This?” He squeezed her breast, dug in his fingers until she squeaked and writhed under him. 

“Yes. No. I mean..” She swallowed hard. “If you go any higher, you’ll know.” 

“Oh.” he smiled, catching on. “It’s not shameful, it’s wonderful. It’s what pleases me more than anything.” His fingers slid upward and skimmed the place where thighs met, the soft damp curls there catching lightly against his calloused fingertips. She whimpered in embarrassment but he didn’t stop. “To know that you are like this because of me?” He felt elated and his voice certainly must have held a note of awe. “I did this to you? Your body burns because you want me?” He felt her tension slowly seeping away and let his fingertips slide between her damp thighs and lightly skim the edge of her sex. “I’m so lucky.” 

She bit her lip and tried not to die of shame. He was touching her, she could hear it as much as feel it. “It hurts.” He stopped and the ache grew sharper. “No… it hurts worse when you stop.” She had never felt like this. His fingers were so gentle, but so rough in feel, it was obvious they were a man’s hands and against so wicked a place they left sparks of sensation that made her insides clench. He slid along the deviation and she felt him slip between and glide slowly back and forth until she thought she’d lose her mind. 

She had been so afraid when he’d had her against the wall, so afraid of having that.. Inside of her, but with every movement of his fingertip she felt like a hollow starved place inside of her was growing and to be filled by him was the only cure. 

“Be my lover.” She said quietly, but firmly enough that he heard it clear. 

He wanted to hear her say it again. “What was that?”

“I want… to be your lover. I want all of you.” 

He groaned and licked his lips. “I want all of you too.” He sat forward and slid her down his knees so his fingers could undo her skirt’s button before he stood her up and let it fall around her feet. Gazing at her body, the first moment he’d seen her truly naked, he knew he would never leave here. He would do anything to have this vision as his own forever. “So beautiful.” he raked her over with his burning gaze, the marks of his impassioned suckling had turned, in places, to brazen streaks of ruddy purple, her thighs were streaked with the honey she had made just for him. He had never seen anything as downright sexy as her. He stood up and worked his jeans down, wanting nothing between them but heat. 

He scooped her up and carried her toward the cot. Soon as he could get to the shop, he was building them a real bed. For now, it would have to do. Gazing down at her, he shook his head slowly. What had he done to earn such a blessing? Maybe he had died in that storm and this was his heavenly reward. He knelt down, his knee between her own. “I know you think it’s a silly name, but I want to hear you say it.” He held her gaze with a burning intent. 

“What’s a silly name?” She blinked up at him in confusion. 

“My name.” 

She regarded him with a smile that he wanted to taste. “It’s not silly. It’s a fine name. It means ‘king’. She ran her fingers over her breasts, teasing herself and him at once. “Just like Regina means ‘queen’.” 

A king and his queen. So that was why she’d been so damn tickled the first time she’d heard it. “So say it.” He pressed his palms to her knees, sliding up her thighs and curving under to spread her legs wide enough for him to bring his other knee between. 

“Mmm… Rrrrex.” She purred it, her hands cupping her breasts, her wild curls spread out beneath her face like a halo. “Do I have to beg, my king?” 

He was struck breathless. “Yes.” He could barely form the word. She was still afraid, he could feel her tension under his fingers. Still, she was doing her best to hide it. He needed her to be desperate as he was. 

“Please?” She lifted her hips invitingly. 

“Please who?” He groaned as he guided himself to rub against that slippery slit and poised himself, leaning down over her. He saw the fear then. The fear she’d be judged or shamed, that she’d be hurt, that he would feel somehow different about her in the morning. “Please what?” He pressed against her just enough to cause her to whimper in anticipation. “ Do you want me inside of you? Do you need me to take every part of you and make it mine tonight?” His thumb rubbed against that tender spot just above where he rested and she gasped and nodded. “Who is your lover, Regina?” 

“Rex Marksley is my lover.” She purred.

“Damn right he is.” She shuddered under him and he pushed forward, feeling something give, her body opening to him and he was truly inside her. She cried out and he covered her mouth with his, his tongue muffling her moans as he began to thrust in earnest. He had so wanted to go slow. To make her feel beautiful and cherished but all he could feel was her heartbeat all around him, slick and burning hot. Ruthlessly he began to sway his hips, pinning her down with his palms, keeping her still under his pounding, taking more of her as his until he was buried to the very end of his length, wanting more still. He rocked back on his heels and pulled her up across his knees, impaling her down upon him, her breasts crushed against his chest. 

He panted and took her hand from his shoulder, pushed it between them so her fingers could feel the place of their union as he rocked his hips. “Who’s your lover, Regina.” She moaned his name and he cut it off with his mouth on hers as he cupped her rump and hammered up into her. He was unhinged. The sound of it, the smell, the feeling was more than he could have imagined. Tomorrow he’d pay the fiddler but tonight, he would have music. A symphony of sexual abandon. “Mine.” he squeezed his eyes shut, so much pleasure it hurt. 

Her moans were harmony to his own, he had tried so hard, but already he was ready to burst. He tossed her back, leaned over her, his palms at either side of her head, curled around the frame of the cot as he drove to his limit and the dam broke, his whole body wracked with ecstasy as wave after wave of heat poured out into her. He wanted her branded, marked intimately by him alone. Only after did he feel a pang of concern for the possible consequences. 

His eyes snapped open, saw her shock, the dark blues wide with the awareness of what they’d done. He stared unabashedly, determined to memorize every moment. He pulled out in a swift drag of his hips and she gasped and flinched as if it hurt her, her eyes closing as she lay still beneath him. 

Rex was usually no good at small talk at times like this. He usually dressed and got the hell out, but even if he could have this time, he didn’t want to. He knelt back and looked down at her. A moment passed and he rose from the bed and stepped into the other room. He returned with a warm washcloth and gingerly began wiping at her inner thighs, streaked with their mingled juices and the obvious streaks of blood. 

“I hurt you, I’m sorry.” he swallowed faintly and flinched at every wince he caused while he cleaned her up. 

“Rex.” She said in a tone so serious he felt his heart drop to his stomach. He couldn’t look at her face. He didn’t want to see recrimination or unhappiness there. “Would you just look at me, you ass.” 

He reluctantly obeyed, and she offered a small smile. “You did hurt me.” She stretched faintly and sighed. “But it was the kind of pain I think I like.” Everything was achy, but she felt warm and sated and happy. “Now come to bed, your highness.” She yawned softly and turned to her side, curled up with her eyes closed. “The queen is chilly.” A sleepy, teasing smile on her lips. 

“Yes, Ma’am.” he pulled the quilt over her and took only enough time to gather up the clothes and take them to the washroom before he slid under the blanket behind her, spooning up against her back, her pert rump fitting perfectly against his hips, her head just under his chin. Holding her close to him, he let himself sink into sleep. There was no fear of his dreams tonight. No matter how erotic they were, they would pale to the reality he had now in his arms.


	10. Chapter 10

He woke slowly. He was warm and deep in slumber and he didn’t want to go. In his dream, he had been with Regina. He had tasted her lips and felt her warmth and her arms surrounding him. They had loved and laughed and he had never known such happiness. If he left the dream, he’d feel the cold. The chilly barn or worse, he was in some dark snowdrift dying and this had all been a product of his brain seizing up as he froze to death. He really had to pee. Opening his eyes he saw the stove across the room, the windows, the rocking chair. A smile as he stretched languidly and snuggled a moment more down into the cot, the quilt pulled up to his chin. 

The air smelled steamy and starchy like a Chinese Laundry. Laundry! He sat up, realizing that the day had long ago dawned. Pushing his hands back through his wild black hair in an attempt to smooth it. He wrinkled his nose and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands to banish the last wisps of sleep. Swinging his legs off the bed, he rose, uncaring that he was naked, and moved around to peek into the washing room. 

There were lines hung across the room, on which the clothes were hung, dripping faintly onto the floor. The roaring fire made the room almost too hot. He still had to pee. He looked around for the nightshirt and found it under the bed. He was certain that the storm would not allow anyone else to see him, but he needed some protection from the elements if he was going to step outside. He knew he must look like an idiot, wearing a too-short nightshirt that only reached mid-thigh, his long legs bare except for the worn boots he’d stepped into sans socks, and the quilt wrapped around his shoulders, but it was better than going naked. If the shadows against the canvas could be trusted, the snow outside was nearly to his waist. Two minutes later, he slid back inside, closing the door to Privy Road and laughing to himself that he’d thought this room could ever be called too warm. 

He moved through the somewhat precarious jungle of clothing to stand by the fire and warm up a bit. He wondered where Regina was. Maybe she’d needed to sleep in her own bed. He imagined when you had one bed for longer than a week, you might not as easily sleep in another. Was that his fate? To be in the same bed for weeks? Months? Years? He hadn’t really thought about it. Her father hadn’t been there for her. Would he abandon her too? He didn’t want to. He wanted to stay here, with her, but being honest, he also wanted his other life. To go and help those who he could. Who needed someone who could stand up and defend them. Could he do that and keep her too? Right now, he didn’t know. Right now he didn’t have to choose. He’d just enjoy it until… until he didn’t. If he were meant to stay, fate would make that clear. If not, well, fate would show him that road in time.

A thumping from the kitchen announced her presence. He, again, felt he looked a little stupid, so he pulled off the boots which helped a bit. Padding barefoot, tossing the quilt onto the cot as he passed, he took her in. Her wild curls were again given freedom, bits of snow clinging to the tumbled mass of honey as she worked her boots off. A fresh pile of wood was piled by the stove. She glanced up and he saw a rush of emotions. Happiness, swiftly driven away by shame, unease, and lastly a cool mask of casual politeness. It was a dart of recrimination to the balloon of his good mood. He had done something he ought not have. He should apologize. Beg her forgiveness. Return to the barn to freeze rather than face this moment. 

“Good morning, Mr. Marksley.” She said quietly. “I hope I didn't disturb you with all the banging in the wash room.” 

Now they were back to ‘Mr. Marksley’ were they? “No, Ma’am. I was dead to the world. I haven’t slept so well in a long time.” 

“Are you hungry?” 

She kept her eyes downcast as if she were afraid to look at him. He wanted to shake her, to bring back the seductive nymph who had drawn him into her bed and body so fully. “Yes. Ravenous.” He stalked toward her. “But I am fairly sure you know what I want for breakfast.” He was angry. He was sad to see her hurt, but he was furious she would turn so cold on him. His hands took her arms just above the elbow and pulled her back against him, his head bowed to nuzzle past the tickling curls and kiss her neck. 

If she wished to be cold, he’d deny it to her. Let her slap him. He’d even get the chair if needed. He wanted her to fight, to give him something to burn his anger out with. Let her shout at him so he could shout back. Instead, she groaned and melted back into his lean frame, her hand rising to curl her fingers gently in his hair. 

“You don’t hate me?” She murmured under her breath. 

He lifted his head and turned her around, looking down at her with as much shock as if she’d smacked him with a fish. “What?!” He blinked at the tremble of her lip, the dampness in her eye. “Regina, I’m not angry. I’m… gobsmacked. How could you think I would ever hate you?”

“Well, I supposed …” She dropped her eyes again and he curled his fingers under her chin to make her look back up at him. “I mean, if a lady, or someone who once was one, she is so easily rid of her virtue, what does that say about her. Why would you not hate me?” 

“You _are_ a lady, Regina. A queen. I do not think you were the only one there last night. I was just as shameless. Worse. If anyone here is devoid of virtue, it’s me. I’m a .. whatever the male version of a whore is, that is me.” 

“Don’t be daft!” She chuckled against her will. “It is different for men.” She dampened her lips. “That said…” She claimed the edge of her lower lip between her teeth, eyelids dipping to brush the soft lashes across her cheek coyly. “I do have a bit put aside for special purchases.” She looked up at him, obviously teasing him. “What will three dollars and fourteen cents get me?”

He was awash in thoughts. The urge to laugh was strong, but also he felt he ought to have been perhaps insulted. Instead, the thought of being her whore, even in play, was arousing. He rolled his hips faintly and batted his lashes. “Well, it’s a penny a kiss.” 

She huffed and threw up her hands, her tone annoyed and frustrated. “Great! That gets me to about mid-afternoon!” She was obviously still playing with him. “Well, what about cake. What’ll a slice of cake get me?” 

He wanted to kiss her so much right now. He pursed his lips and tapped them with one slender fingertip as he looked up, seeming to ponder her proposal. Leaning down, he whispered into her ear the honest truth. That for cake, he would make her scream his name so loud they’d hear it in Silver Springs. He felt her cheek against his own warming precipitously, the blush evident when he stood back up. 

“I don’t want there to be any more guessing, Regina. I will tell you what I think, and whatever it is, you will be privy to. Can you do the same?” He took hold of her hands and backed up until he felt the table under his rump, sitting down and pulling her to stand between his knees, putting them almost nose to nose. “Can you promise to be honest with me?”

“Yes.” She nodded and brushed her palms over his shoulders, down his arms, back up. “I can be honest with you.”

“Good.” He rested his hands on her waist, or what of it he could feel under the multiple shirts. “It is very warm in the other room. Perhaps in there, you could feel comfortable removing some of these. “ He lifted his brows. He had promised honesty. 

“I will go change and then we can work on you earning your three dollars and fourteen cents.” 

“And cake. I am really looking forward to cake.” He bit the word out, hitting both consonants hard, making it sound somehow as sinful as chocolate cake ought to sound. 

The laundry room was far too warm for either of them to keep their clothes, and the day was spent without them, curled up on a pile of blankets, talking and kissing, and spending hours just touching one another before they could neither withstand the torment and collided like tide and shore. In the late afternoon, it grew quiet, and by the next morning, it was clear the storm had passed. 

The warm day of respite turned into several days of hard work and freezing extremities as they dug their way out of the cabin and to the barn, then to the workshop and the shed. The horse was a bit peevish and chilled, but over the day, while Regina was working on the shoveler, Rex managed to make a heater that would warm copper pipes across the barn floor and radiate heat through the structure. It wasn’t much, but it would make the beast’s time far more tolerable.

Over the table that afternoon, having had a bit of lunch and both smelling of liniment and witch hazel, they put the finishing touches on the list they’d begun the evening of laundry day. 

“Okay, so… on the ‘absolute must’ section, a bigger bed is on the top.” 

“Oh, I don’t know. I rather like the cot. You can’t get too far from me.” She smiled up at him. 

“It’s not width, it’s length.” he grinned faintly. “If I stretch my feet go over the end.” 

“Alright, ya giraffe. Longer bed, top of the list. What’s next?”

“I would like to maybe make an indoor bathing tub. Something permanent. Maybe with a boiler to heat the water so there’s no need to keep going kettle by kettle? Oh, and a real hallway to the privy? No more canvas walls or icy puddles.”

She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. “That sounds … amazing, Rex. Really, but it'll be a waste. Soon as the snow melts enough to get out, I’m… I’m leaving here.” 

He felt a strange kind of pain. Like he’d been running at full speed and suddenly the ground opened up under him. “Oh.” He reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Can I ask why?”

“This was my father’s house, but he’s gone now. I planned to stay through the worst of winter because it’s foolish to try to travel when it’s dumping feet of snow down on you, but once spring is here, I got no reason to stay.” 

“Well, what about the Iron Horse? You going to just leave it behind?”

She looked down at her hands, folded on the table. “I was actually going to destroy it. I’d rather my father’s work die with him than some son-of-a-bitch steals it and makes his fortune and never give him his proper credit.” 

He felt angry. He felt relieved. He felt angry _because_ he was relieved. “I’m going to go … take some measurements.” he rose and collected his coat, pulling it on and wrapping up warmly before he lit the lantern and headed out into the cold evening. He half expected she’d try to stop him, but she didn’t. In the workshop, safe from the buffeting winds, he dropped his scarf from his face and exhaled hard, a steamy cloud drifting into the air. Why was he so upset? 

He wanted to be free. To be able to go where he wanted. Do what he pleased. To help people when they called and not be tied down to one place. One person. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her. He did. He loved everything about her. She made his life feel whole in a way that even his work in the past had not done. She filled up a huge empty place inside of him. It just wasn’t the only empty place. Maybe she could come with him. The instant he thought it his mind flashed with the image of one of those ne'er do wells he took on taking aim at Regina. Doing worse than shooting her if it meant making Rex pay for trying to thwart them. No, he was better off alone. He felt a pain in his chest so huge it defied physics. That much agony couldn’t fit in a single person. 

He tried to reassure himself as he measured out the wood for the new bed. “It’s a while until spring. I can enjoy my time here, and make hay while the sun shines as they say. Snow melts, we say our good-byes and … we go our separate ways.” All the pep talks in the world couldn’t help, and he went back inside an hour later with that heavy feeling still sinking into his heart. 

The table was clear, and she was sitting in the rocking chair, watching the fire through the open door of the stove. She looked up at him when he turned from hanging his coat and scarf up. She had obviously not missed that he was unhappy. Standing up, she moved over to take his hands and lift them to her lips, exhaling warmly on his chilled fingers. She didn’t apologize or offer an explanation or attempt to bring up the dropped conversation. She just welcomed him home. 

The heat of her breath steamed against his fingertips, her parted lips brushing over the callouses and her tongue teased the creases of his knuckles. It wasn’t spring yet. Pulling her against him, he bent to her mouth and kissed her, telling her without words that he needed her. His hands were swift in their work to strip and have her naked in his arms. If all he had was this moment, he would wring every bit of joy from it he could. He broke the kiss only long enough to pull his shirt over his head, to hell with the buttons, and throw it aside. She was down to her chemise and a pair of those damn silk bloomers in white with little pink bows. 

“Have I told you today… that you are the most beautiful thing in the world?” He dug his hands in her hair, ashamed that he’d ever thought a woman’s hair should be anything but wild kinks of gold and wheat against their shoulders.

“Mmhmm.” She nodded. “Twice.” 

Her hands moved over his chest and ribs, nails dragging little pink furrows that made him suck a breath through his teeth. “Ow…” he felt her bend, her lips and little pink velvet tongue licking where she’d scratched, kissing at the heated lines over his skin until his cock was like iron. “I … I happen to know you’re out of cake.” he breathlessly shuddered. “And you spent your three dollars fourteen cents already.” He grinned teasingly, eyes squeezed shut when her mouth brushed one of his nipples and his belly tightened with the torment it sent through him. 

“Oh. You’re right. Well, it’s too late to bake so … I’ll have to earn my money back somehow.” her smile hinted at the edges of her mouth as she glanced up at him. 

“I can think of a way.” he waggled his brows at her. 

“Oh, well then..” She stepped back and lifted her hair, turning a bit to look across her shoulder with batted lashes and a pouty expression. “Hey cowboy.” 

He was so tempted to laugh. It was so damn adorable. “Um...Howdy.” He tipped an imaginary hat in her direction. “I’ve been um… riding fence all week to save up enough for you, Miss Regina.” He swept off that invisible hat and held it to his heart. “Cause you’re the prettiest girl in the whole territory.” 

“Riding fence?” Her brows lifted as she turned and traced the hardness of her nipple under the thin cotton. “Sounds painful. So… you came to ride something softer?” Her own lips twitching with the barely restrained giggle. 

_Let spring never come._ “Yes ma’am. I would very much like that. I want... I want all I can get for three dollars and fourteen cents. Everything I got, Miss Regina, I wanna give it to you.” His double meaning very clear between them. 

She stepped to him, hooking her index in the belt loop over his right hip, giving him a little tug to follow as she took a step backward. “Well then, let’s see what you’ve got to give.” 

He shook his head and glanced past her to the rocking chair. Pulling her hand free gently, he moved around and sat down, his jeans and boots still on, he motioned at her. “Strip.” He wished now he’d left more on her. How he had hated all those layers that hid her from his eyes for so long, but now he found he loved watching her peel her clothes off. 

She twisted her lips in a wry smirk and with a look of indulgence, she moved to stand before him. Two items. That was all she had but she made it last. Each binding ribbon of her chemise was drawn so slowly he could almost feel the satin scraping against itself, the weave grinding as soft as breath, the tension as the bow’s fold caught, then succumbed, the crossed strip caught in the bend of her fingertip and pressed, sliding down the wrinkled length, the x against her fingertip gliding until at the end, it vanished into separation and the peeking gap where her skin was bared. Any relief was driven back to that lustful anticipation when the next bow’s end was pinched between thumb and index to start the torment again. 

His breath was quickened as he shifted in the chair, not only side to side but in that faint sway back and forth the chair allowed. He wanted her more than his next breath. She was nothing like any woman he had ever known. A decent woman would have never been standing before a man who wasn’t her husband, swaying her hips as she stripped naked, all wild hair and bright eyes, playing at whoring to entice him. No whore would blush while she did it or make him cake or talk for hours about mechanics and politics and literature. 

He was well aware they were in her cabin, but as the second bow was skipped, moving on to the third and leaving the middle one for last, he embraced his role as the rustic cowpoke in the boudoir of one of the finest soiled doves in the fanciest of brothels. “Oh, Miss Regina, I ain’t never seen so pretty a gal as you. You’re like sliced peaches soaking in cream,” he recalled her faint freckles. How he wanted to kiss and taste and name every one of them. “ Sprinkled with cinnamon.” He shuddered.

She bit her lip and he saw her blush warm, the blues darkened to a sapphire hue and he could tell she was amused and aroused all at the same time. It took all his control to stay in the chair, rocking faintly to give his tension some sort of release. She slid her fingertips along the division between the halves of her chemise. “Well aren’t you just the sweetest thing.” her purr running over his nerves as if it were a physical touch. She moved to stand between his knees. “For that, you can finish unwrapping your present.” She gestured at the last bow, hands settling on her hips with her fingers aimed backward, her elbows out, a posture that arched her back and thrust her breasts outward. He knew the moment that tautly pulled bow came loose, she’s pop right out of that damn thing. 

He couldn’t lift his hand. He could only stare at the pair of twisted pieces of pink satin that were defying him. The juvenile part of his brain, that green boy that screamed _‘yeehaw! Let’s see them titties!’_ seemed to be fighting a war with the part of him that promised if he went slow, he’d enjoy it more. He managed, at last, to shut the boy up and let the man take control. Reaching up with both hands, he took either end and gave a sharp, quick tug to both ends at once and let go, watching her face, not her chest, as it unraveled and the thin cotton spread wide over her torso. “I ain’t a patient man, Miss Regina.” Watching her eyes, her lips, the look of shock and lust and happiness. “So...so you hurry on up and get them drawers off because…” his hand dropped to rub against himself lewdly. “I could drive a railroad spike through a sun-cooked oak fencepost with this thing right now.” 

She made that little sound, oh GOD that sound. It was a little chirp, a squeak of shock and a purr of desire all mixed. It was the sound she made when he pushed himself inside of her and he could tell she was remembering. Wanting to feel it again. Oh, he was going to give it to her until she begged him for mercy. Her hands were shaking as she drug the chemise off her shoulders and let it slide to the floor. His eyes raked over her perfect breasts, still marred by his overenthusiastic sucking and his rough hands. She was such a tender thing, but he saw her scars as well. They were faint but there. A fall into a barbed wire fence left a little puckered rose at her hipbone. A dropped kitchen knife carved a little slash line over her palm. She was tender, but she wasn’t fragile. 

Oh hell, she ran her palms up her belly, over those breasts that filled his palm so perfectly, teased the ruddy tips to blushing heat and his loins gave a throb that nearly undid him. He had a terrible thought. If she ever did become a whore, she’d be the richest prairie flower in the whole country. Jealousy overwhelmed him, even thinking of another man’s hands on her set his vision to blur. She turned on one foot, that pirouette of dancer grace that she used for everything swept away any thought but how he wanted her. 

Why did any man want a woman with long hair? If it passed her shoulders how could he enjoy the line of her backbone? The flexing of her shoulder blades under smooth milky skin? The faint shift of her ribs when she breathed and that place, that little spot where her spine bent and her butt took over with little teacup dimples. “Damn me..” he whispered as she stood there, back towards him, and the waistband of those drawers grew looser, dipping down over one hip so the upper curve of her ass was peeking at him.

She hooked her thumbs in the silk and bent as she pushed them down her strong legs, the visual of her bent over in front of him, every private place just … brazenly flashing, he felt something break inside of his brain as that green boy’s head just exploded like a match across the striker. Before she could step out of them, he leaned forward in the rocker and grabbed her hips, pulling her backward, leaving them hanging from one ankle as she squealed and fell into his lap. 

One arm snaked around her waist and the other around her ribs to cover and maul gently at her breast, his lips near her ear as he held her against him. “Mmm, I warned ya I weren’t a patient man.” Her naked rump settled so perfectly against him, warmth radiating through the denim in both directions. “You ought not tease me so much.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind, Cowboy, for next time?” As if it was asking if he’d come back. 

“Oh, hell, I’m going to be here every payday, Miss Regina.” His chin nudging hers to move so he could nibble at her neck. “Mmm.. you smell so nice.” his other hand rising up to claim her other breast as he suckled and nipped and bit down until her skin bore his mark. He couldn’t help it. That thread of jealousy was still tangling him up. “There.. So everybody knows you’re mine.” He had never felt so possessive as he did at this moment. 

Every moan, every little grind of her hips made him sure he’d not last another second, but he did. He wanted her to be so needy, so cathouse crazed that she’d claw through his jeans with her own nails if only to get to him, and he wasn’t going to give in until she was. “Say it.” he arched his hips to push up against her as his hand slid down her belly. “Say you are mine.” 

“Oh, I’m yours all night, Sugar.” 

His fingers curled over her thigh and moved her leg so her foot was on the outside of his calf, and did the same on the other side, spreading his legs, and thus hers widely. “I’m not renting, Miss Regina. I’m gunna _own_ this sweet little peach here.” He laid his palm against her sodden sex and squeezed gently. “You’re mine forever.” 

She gasped and stiffened, her thighs closing around his hand, only succeeding in pushing him tighter against her. “Spread ‘em.” His fingers moved to rub and tease as the tension slowly abated, feeling her heated blush against his cheek as his lips brushed the soft skin of her jaw. She obeyed and hung her knees over the tops of his thighs, his other arm holding her secure to his chest until she relaxed against him. “That’s a good girl.” He pet softly, like it was a snoozing housecat “I ain’t hurting you am I?” It was partly a game, and he was holding up his end, but he needed to know the moment it stopped being fun for her. 

“No.” She shook her head and bit her lip, her hands laying over his wrists. “I mean… it does ache.” She lifted her hips faintly against his teasing fingertips that tickled and gave no pressure to ease the swelling need. “Okay, it hurts. I want you so much it hurts me.” 

His voice ragged as he decided. “Let me make the hurting go away.” He was used to being so needful it became pain. She wasn’t. She didn’t know the pleasure was so close that she only had to reach out for it. 

His long fingers traced the pouty lips, slid between, stroked and caressed, felt the petals warmth spread. Her breathing was fast and shallow, but as he explored they became tinged with fearful desperation. He brushed his fingertip against the hard nub at the apex of her slit and she cried out in shock. “Shh… don’t fight me now. I’m going to make you forget every man but me.” 

His free hand captured her wrist, lifted her hand to the back of his neck. He then took her other hand and laid it against her own breast, covering her fingers with his, pressing and kneading as his other hand worked between her legs. He felt the edge of her entrance and pressed his middle finger slowly inside of her. “Oh, you’re so hot.” he groaned and ran that slick digit in and out, angled so he could stroke at her tenderest place. She began to writhe slowly, lifting her hips into his touch. She was flushed and gasping when a second finger joined the first and pushed deeper still, each thrust pushing her derriere into his cloth-covered hardness. 

“So… so much.” She whispered and he could hear her resolve crumbling, her walls clenched and squeezed at him as he invaded her depths. Her thighs were spread wide for him, she whimpered and moaned but he felt her begin to stiffen. “No, stop, somethings…” Her tone fearful and desperate. “Something’s wrong. It’s too much.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” he did stop, feeling her fluttery pulse all around him. “This is why you belong to me.” He resumed with gusto, pinning her to his chest with his arm, his legs parted to spread her own wide and deny him nothing. She shook her head and tried to pry his hand away but he succumbed to that beast that heard ‘no’ and didn’t stop. “For me. Only for me.” 

He felt the first tremor and then she cried out his name in ecstasy. He didn’t stop, coaxing wave after wave of orgasmic bliss from her until his fingers were drenched. His name linked to God’s in every wild cry he wrenched from her lips. Slowing, he simply cupped her and held her secure as aftershocks rolled through her body. For long minutes he simply held her, feeling her shake, aware she was quietly weeping. It broke his heart but he didn’t move because she didn’t. If she’d have tried to pull away, he’d have let her go without a seconds pause. 

“I’m all right.” She sniffled. “I just… it was so much.” 

“And the hurting?” He asked softly. 

“Better.” She swallowed hard. “Is it always like that?” 

“Not always. But often, if you’re doing it right, it can be.” 

She was quiet for a few moments. “Is it like that for you? I mean, does it feel…” 

“I’m not a woman, so I can’t say for sure.” He grinned against her hair. “But if it feels for you like it does for me, it’s…. Like all of heaven in a single moment.” 

“Pretty close.” She wriggled a bit, seemingly aware of both his hands on her and the unyielding dig of his length against her rump. “I feel bad. I’ve had heaven and you’re still suffering.” 

“Mmm, Miss Regina..” he smiled against her neck. “Night’s not even half over.” He slid his hands under her legs and stood in a single motion.


	11. Chapter 11

The sun crept in on them, sprawled and entangled in the middle of the floor in a pile of doffed clothes and twisted blankets, the mattress half off the cot, the fire out and the smell of sin in the air. 

He felt hungover but he’d not had a drink since before he’d gotten lost in that snowstorm. He reached out and felt something, an ankle? No forearm, there was a hand. He crawled over and peeled the quilt back slowly to kiss his way up that arm to the suckle-bruised skin of her neck. “Mmm… good morning.’ he mumbled into her skin. She was worse than liquor. She was the most intoxicating thing in the universe. He lifted his head, gazing down at her, waiting like a kid at Christmas for the moment her eyes opened. 

“Hey there.” He watched the pupils draw back, showing more of that gorgeous blue. His long fingers moved over her face, brushing her hair back off her forehead and cheeks. 

“Mmm.” she groaned and wrinkled her nose. “Mrrnin.” her hand lifted to rub at her eyes as she sat up with a groan. “Ooh…not smart. Floor bad. Ow.” She got up, all wobble-legged like a newborn calf and with slow hesitant steps and a good deal of stretching, made her way across the room to build a fire. He lay on his side, pushed up by a lean on his elbow, just watching her work. 

“Did you used to be a ballerina?” 

She chuckled and tossed another log on the growing fire and then closed the door. “When I was a girl, I did take classes, yes. I’m built wrong though.” She rubbed at her bare arms and he motioned her to join him under the quilt which she waved off in lieu of getting her clothes gathered and dressing. 

“What do you mean built wrong.” Damn, it was just as sexy watching her put the clothes back on. He openly leered. “There is nothing wrong with how you’re built from where I’m sitting.” 

“To quote Madame LaRouche, ‘you are not a swan, you are a turkey’” She sighed softly as she buttoned up her flannel shirt. “I am not the slender reed that is meant to grace the stage, all long legs and arms and a neck like a goose.” 

“She was an idiot.” he sat up and began reaching for his own tossed clothes. He bit his lip as he drug his jeans toward him. “I… I wanted to talk about yesterday.” He stood as he pulled the jeans up, buttoning them secure before he ran his hand through his hair. “Well, both parts of yesterday. First, about the … part when I came back from the workshop. I want you to know I don’t think of you with anything but the deepest and most honest respect.” 

“I know, Rex.” She smiled. “I thought it would be fun, and it was. Only because it was you. I … I think I’d die of mortification if anyone else ever found out I’d done that, but as long as it’s just you, I’m okay.” 

He gave a sigh of relief. “Ah, good.” he shifted to the serious tone. “And the other part? You really are going to leave when the snow melts?”

“I don’t even think I can wait that long. I don’t mean this in a bad way, Rex, but I bought enough food for me to last the winter. With two people, it’s going faster. I’ll have to leave by the end of the month.” 

“For more supplies?” He knew what the answer would be before he asked. 

“I have only what money we keep passing back and forth, Rex. I hope the weather is kind and there is a bit of a thaw so I can take the wagon with me. Sell some things and maybe have enough to get a ticket out of town. I don’t have enough to buy supplies and I’m sure that with the weather being what it is, flour, sugar, eggs… they’re going to be five times the usual price and I won’t be able to afford them anyway.” She sighed and stepped up, her arms sliding around his waist once he’d gotten his shirttail tucked in. “But that’s not happening today. Or tomorrow. Or even next week probably.” 

“Okay.” He nodded, though he was again plagued by that heavy iron feeling in his chest. Wrapping his arms around her, his chin settled atop her head, he just held her close for a half minute before he let her loose to go tend to getting some coffee on. He could leave. If he were gone, it would mean she’d have enough food to get further toward spring. Somehow, he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to leave her. He pushed it out of his mind. It was only making him unhappy. Like she said. Today, it wasn’t happening. Worry tomorrow. 

Tomorrow it didn’t happen either. Or the next week or the week after. Every day he found new ways to love her. Soft, tender warm hours of touch and kissing and a slow build to ecstasy, and times where it was hard and heated and rough, barely pulling enough cloth away to get the job done against the barn wall. More than the carnal things, they spent hours just talking. He fixed the bed, and from the old frame made a chair for himself so they could sit together after supper. She’d read to him or he’d tell her stories he’d picked up on the trail. 

He told her things that he barely confessed to himself. That injustice was everywhere, and he could feel it, like a stain on the world he needed to scrub away. He’d been a runty kid, and the target of bullies all his young life. He felt for the downtrodden and the abused and he wanted to make a difference before his life was ended. She seemed to understand that. To support his desire to help people. He held her as she wept about the pain of having to care for her father in his final months. Of her guilt because she had been relieved when he died. Of her sadness that his life’s work was going to have to be destroyed. 

“What if it didn’t?” He had been thinking about it. “You can’t sell it yourself, you know they’ll either cheat you or steal it. I’m a man. I can sell it and assure that you get a good price and your father’s name is tied to it forever.” 

She pulled back and blinked up at him. “How?”

“Well… I know a railroad man. I worked for him for a bit and he, like me. Like us… is a man who strives for the new. He would probably pay a good amount to have a machine that didn’t require train tracks. The shoveler too. He’d probably make a mint selling it to big cities to keep the roads clear. Even if you just got ten percent, you’d be one of the wealthiest women in the country within a year.” He smiled, liking the idea more and more. 

“On one condition.” He could almost see the gears grinding behind her eyes as she worked it through her clever brain. “The money goes into a trust. For advancements in creativity. So inventors from all over can get money to fund their work.” 

He shook his head, amazed at her. “I love the way you think.” He leaned in and kissed her gently. “I’ll send him a cable when we get to town.” He smiled against her lips. “In the meantime…” His chuckle muted when his kiss deepened and there was no more talk of machines and money. 

The next week dawned bright and sunny, and all week it remained so. Unseasonably temperate, the dug-out paths around the homestead that had been at their hip were, by Thursday, only just above their knee. He couldn’t put it off. The time had come. What would happen when they reached Silver Springs? Where would they go? He didn’t know if there would even be a ‘we’ once civilization claimed them again. 

“It’s tomorrow, isn’t it.” He said over the rather sad luncheon of boiled oats and the last of the honey. 

“Yes.” She sighed. “I think it’s for the best.” Her head bowed, her tone tense. 

He had sensed her nerves were getting worse. Skittish and fretful of late and he could not shake the feeling she was hiding something, but he didn’t want to pry. He loved her. He had never felt like this for anyone in his life, and the idea of a day dawning where she was not there was … he didn’t want to think about it. 

“Then we go tomorrow.” He concentrated on eating, though it tasted like tar in his mouth and swallowing past the lump of sadness in his throat was nearly impossible. 

The house, surprisingly, fit into two large steamer trunks, his own things packed away on his horse. The sled was tied to the pommel, and Rex walked with her to Silver Springs as soon as the sun was up. It took them until evening to reach the road, add the wheels to the runners of the sled and then pull it like a toy behind them as they rode into Silver Springs well after nightfall. 

Silver Springs was a town at a tipping point. Named for the silver that seemed to pop up out of the ground when the land was first mined, it had gone through the phase of a tent city built around a mine, a small gathering of bars and whorehouses for the miners to spend their pay in and a company store to get goods from to where it was now. A town almost born. There was a general store and a hotel. Residential homes spreading outward and a blacksmith… the low saloons and cheap rows of crib girls were being driven out by fancier places with brass rails and entertainers. There was even a church. Pretty soon the wives would drive out the ‘wicked element’ and Silver Springs would be fully respectable. Not today though. 

The good folk of the town had long ago found their beds. The only light and sound was The Golden Stag. Men moved in and out, the sound of music and laughter and shouting poured out into the street. Rex had no desire to take her into a place like that, but neither could he leave her outside to wait for the shops to open in hopes of selling some of her things to get the money needed for a ticket on the stage as well as food and shelter. 

He parked the wagon and hid it under a tarp until morning when they could retrieve it. “I have an idea.” He said quietly. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it.” 

She sat, shivering while Rex entered the Golden Stag. Half an hour he was gone, and when he returned, it was not out the front door, but the back. He whistled and gestured for her to join him. She had no idea what he was doing, and when she came around and saw him in the company of two well-painted women, she was doubly dubious. The ladies each took a hand and pulled her to follow, fingers on their lips, and lead her up a back staircase to a room upstairs. 

“Okay…” Rex said as he paced. “I saw this on the road once, but I’ve never done it myself. You’ll be safe up here.” 

“What are you going to do?” Her tone both frightened and annoyed that she was being left in the dark. 

“What I’ve always done, Regina.” he patted his gun at his hip, then leaned down, pulling her against him and kissing her hard before he walked out the door and back down the back stairs. 

“Give him a second, Honey.” The older of the women chuckled, listening at the door. Faintly, through the floor Regina heard voices getting raised. “Okay… come on.” She motioned her to step out and stand on the rail of the balcony that ran along the second floor. Rex was at the bar, his posture quite relaxed as he sipped at what she could only surmise was whisky. 

“You’re a lying sack of horseshit.” The man guffawed at him.

“Well, we can settle it fairly easy, as I see it.” Rex drawled. “You put your dollar down to match mine and winner takes both.” He eyed the man from under the brim of his hat. 

“Hah. Easiest money I ever made.” He slapped the wrinkled notes down on the bar. 

“Alright then.” Rex barely looked as the crack of gunfire sounded and every eye swung to him, then across the room where a small drifting puff of smoke was rising from the post. The man walked across the room, drawing everyone’s attention as he saw that, indeed, the man had hit dead center of the knothole from across the room. 

“That was far too easy.” He gathered the two dollars up off the counter, added the others he had and waved it. “Four dollars. Put down a dollar and name your challenge. If I fail, you win the whole pot. If I win, I add your money to this pile. I’ll put in my whole winnings up every time, and no challenger will ever have to put in more than one.” He looked around, fanning himself with the cash. “Who thinks they can beat me?”

The crowd was rowdy and drunk, and within the hour, Rex Marksley had thirty-six dollars. He shot the ace of hearts from a gambler’s hand and left no mark on any of the other cards. He shot the eye out of the peacock feather on a dancer’s headdress while she was doing the can-can, he shot out the centers of every ‘p’ on the sign over the bar for **Miss Poppy’s Zippy Peppy Apple Pop** without marring the paint of any of the letters themselves. Eventually, he ran out of takers, bought a round of the cheap stuff for the house and retired upstairs, the stack of money in hand flipped through with his thumb. 

Regina shook her head, unable to be anything but deeply impressed. “Wow. That was … pretty good, I gotta say. You claimed to be the best shot in the world and … I admit I was doubtful. I bow in the presence of a true talent.” She bowed her head, her hands beside it twice before she stood up and regarded him. “Three of those dollars are mine though.” She plucked them out one at a time and folded them into her pocket. I did...earn it, last I recall.” 

“Regina…” he was a little bruised by her words. “Honey it’s all for you. I could make ten times this and it wouldn’t be enough. I owe you my life.” 

She looked at the ladies still lounging in the room, attempting to pretend they weren’t listening. “I have to get out of here. Enjoy your spoils.” She walked out and hugged the wall as she all but ran for the back stairs. 

He was stunned and confused, staring after her until one of the girls snapped at him. “Well go catch her ya idjit!” 

He ran after her, looking up and down the street she was nowhere in sight. The tarp covered trunks were still where he’d left them, untouched, but she was gone. He couldn’t very well go running around shouting her name and wake the town, so he took a seat on the trunks and watched for sign of her eventually wrapping the tarp around himself for warmth until the sun rose and the town moved into life.

It was well after dawn when a trio of men walked toward him. “Hey, get off of those.” 

“They belong to my friend.” He said and set his hand on his pistol. 

“Well one of them does. The black on you can hatch all you want, Friend, but the brown one, that’s mine.” he held out a bill of sale and he recognized Regina’s handwriting. “Where is she?”

“Was waiting soon as we opened. Did business and then she was gone. Didn’t see where she went, don’t really care. Just want the damn trunk.” Rex moved over and the pair with the man picked up the trunk he knew to contain her non-personal things, lamps, and dishes and small housewares and curtains and such. They walked away and he remained guarding it until, an hour later, she darted out from an alley and moved very quickly toward him. 

“My trunk, Mr. Marksley, please.” She looked over her shoulder then back. “I have to get it loaded, there’s a wagon heading out of town and they’re willing to let me ride along but I have to go now.” 

“No!” he said sharply. “Regina, what’s wrong? I didn’t want those women, I just needed somewhere you could be safe while I tried to get us some money. I … I love you, Regina. More than I have ever loved anyone.” 

“Rex, please.” She tried to step past him and grab her trunk but he took hold of her arms and held her in place. 

“If you don’t love me. Just say so. Say you don’t and I’ll load the trunk up myself.” 

“I can’t.” she said softly. “Please, just let me go. You don’t understand.” 

“I understand that you love me. That I love you. What more is there?” He brushed his fingers over her cheek. “Regina, marry me?” 

She looked up, tears in her eyes. “I can’t.” She shook her head, her lip trembling as she made another dive for the trunk and he pulled her back to stand in front of him. 

“Why not? Why won’t you marry me?”

He heard the click of a revolver’s hammer being cocked behind him and felt the gun barrel against the base of his skull. 

“Because I already have a husband.” Tears running down her cheeks.


	12. Chapter 12

Rex felt his blood turn to ice. “What?”

The press of the pistol left the back of his head and a figure moved from behind him. He was nothing like he expected. He was tall and brawny with a face that had seen so much abuse that it was impossible to tell his age. His beard was grizzled and wild, as was his hair, long and tangled beneath the filthy bowler hat. He moved around, still holding the gun up, his hand grabbing hold of Regina’s arm tightly. 

“Little woman thought she’d seen the last of me, didn’t ya Reggie? But I got out, and just like I told you from the start, there ain’t nowhere you can hide where I won’t find you.” His tone was nothing but a threat, and Rex could see her face was one of fear and fury masked beneath a tenuous hold on her good manners. “Thought you could slip town on me? Is it in there?”

“I’ve told you before.” Her voice clipped and too calm. “There is no gold. There never was.” 

“I’ll just check for myself if you don’t mind.” He waved the gun at her as he looked toward Rex. “Better yet. _You_ open the trunk. I don’t mind bein’ a widower… so watch yourself.” He settled the barrel against Regina’s ribcage, still holding tight to her arm. 

Rex pushed down the savior urge to jump the man and beat his face into a pudding. One didn’t have to be a good shot at close range and he’d have a bullet through Regina before Rex could finish a single step. Bile on his tongue, he crouched down and opened the trunk. Within, he could see her books, the quilt, a few pictures, and her clothes. 

“Empty it out…” The man frowned hard. 

Rex obeyed, being careful as he pulled out each folded pile, setting them aside gingerly. He reached the bottom and found a smaller trunk in the corner. 

“Ah..” The man grinned. “There we go.” 

“It’s not gold.” She said firmly. “Go on. Open it, Mr. Marksley.” Almost sounding annoyed. 

Rex did as she bade and showed the contents to the man. It was nothing but gears and cogs, rolls of wire, screws and cotter pins, a worn glove of once-white leather, thin sheets of copper and brass… but no gold. 

“Goddamn it!” He turned and brought the gun up to her chin. “You tell me where that gold is, Reggie or so help me…” 

The distraction, though unexpected, was all Rex needed. He drew his own gun and held it out. “Step. Away.” Counting on the guess that this man cared more about saving himself than hurting someone else. Rex had to stifle a smile when Regina took advantage of distraction as he had done to bring her knee up into her husband’s groin and twist out of his grip in the same graceful motion. 

A gasping choke and stumble, and the man found himself devoid of a wife and with his huevos in his throat, facing down the barrel of a gun. He stepped back, looking between them, glaring daggers in Regina’s direction. “Fine..” He lifted his hands, the gun dangling from his finger against his palm. “I’ll be seein’ you again, Reggie girl. I’ll get what’s mine, then you’ll get yours.” Another few steps backward before he dropped his hand to his hip and slid the gun into his holster, lifting up his empty hands. 

“Come near her again, and I won’t let you walk away. Am I clear?” Rex did not lower his own pistol. He was sorely tempted to end him right there, but he was not a murderer. 

“She’s mine. Law says so. Everything she owns is mine. Fuck her until she whistles like an empty bottle when a stiff breeze blows up her skirt. Fill her up with a dozen bastards and it won’t matter. According to the law, I inherit everything. Betrayed by my wife? Abandoned while she’s out screwing around with some fancy boy? No court would deny me what’s mine.” He cocked his head. “Course, I inherit when she dies too so..” and he pulled his gun. 

Rex did not even flinch. Before the man could fire, he sent a bullet straight into the barrel of the other man’s gun, blocking the projectile, the chamber exploding in a bright flash of shrapnel and flame. 

“MOTHER FUC..” He swore and grabbed his hand, blackened and bleeding, gasping for breath. “You’re dead, Reggie. You and him both.” The man turned and fled into the darkness as the street began to fill with curious folk who had heard the gunshot. 

Rex saw none of them but the shaking figure of Regina staring after the retreating man long after he’d vanished into the darkness. He holstered his gun and held his hands up as the sheriff pushed through the people that blocked the bit of alleyway they were currently occupying. 

“You two are coming with me. I intend to get some answers.” 

“Me too.” Rex said quietly, Regina turning her head quickly to meet his eyes, conveying in a single look more than could take an hour to speak aloud. Two of the deputies shoved all the items back into the trunk and drug it along behind as they were taken to the jailhouse. 

“Alright.” The sheriff sat down, hands folded over his stomach. “Names?”

“Rex Marksley.” 

“ReginaChandler.” 

“Okay, which of you wants to tell me what happened?”

Regina drew a deep shaky breath. “There is the short version and the long one. I’ll give the short, if I may, so you do not feel I am weighing you down with the unimportant parts. Two years ago last September, I was forced to marry a man who had an ulterior motive unknown to me at the time.” She gave a small shake of her head. “This man shot another man in a bar fight, and was arrested. I took the chance fate gave me and I ran away. I came to live with my father and cared for him until his untimely death. I planned to stay in his cabin until spring, but this warm snap gave me a chance to get to Silver Springs earlier than I had planned to. It was dark by the time I arrived though, and the trunk of items I had to sell could not be sold until the store opened this morning.” She held out her copy of the sales slip, which the sheriff perused. “There was only one place still open, so I covertly took up a place in the Golden Stag where I could keep warm and not be visible to the patrons. Mr. Marksley was showing off his shooting when I noticed a face I did not expect to see. My husband’s. I slipped out as fast as I could and I hid until morning. Sold my things, made arrangements to go with a family heading back east and came to collect my clothes and things. My husband pulled a gun on myself and Mr. Marksley, and … when he attempted to shoot me, Mr. Marksley fired as well, Junior’s gun exploded and then he ran off.” 

Rex noticed there were some parts of the story she skimmed. She made no hint that she had ridden into town with him. Perhaps to give him a chance to distance himself? Well, he had no intention of doing that. 

“Junior?”

“My husband. Anthony James Maldonado, Junior.” She said it as if it were a string of swear words. 

“And you say he forced you to marry him?”

“He got me confused with another girl. I was attending Mrs. Esmeralda Staunton's School for Young Aristocratic Ladies, and he thought I was my roommate. Well, he knew my name, he just thought my life was hers and vice-versa. Elenor was an heiress. Her father owned a large shipping firm in San Francisco or something. I never really cared what her family did. She was a nice person and she just wanted to be a normal girl for a change. So… once, just once, she talked me into going with her to this dance in town. She was so afraid that once everyone knew who her family was, that they’d only want her for her money so.. I pretended that it was me who had the rich family and she inherited my dead mother and distant father. I didn’t see the harm in it then. I wasn’t interested in romance so it was easy for me to politely turn down anyone who seemed to be looking to make inroads with an heiress. My husband was there, though I to this day do not know how he managed to wrangle an invitation. He apparently heard through the grapevine that I was rich and began following me around, attempting to …” She narrowed her eyes and her mouth tightened. “Impugn my honor. Eventually he just showed up in our room one night, put a knife to Elenor’s throat while she slept and told me if I didn’t go with him to the justice of the peace in the morning, he would come back and cut her throat. I believed him. So, I married him. He wasn’t happy when he found out I wasn’t who he thought I was. He took out his frustrations with his fists until he was worn out, and went down to the saloon to rest up for round two. Ended up shooting a man over a hand of cards. They came and told me he had been arrested and was going to likely hang. Did I want to come say goodbye? I told them no and I ran away. I came to live with my father.” 

“So your father lives nearby?”

“Yes and no, Sir. His cabin is a day’s ride out of town, but my father died a couple of months back. I planned to wait out the winter in his cabin, then move on.” 

“I thought you said that this Maldonado was supposed to hang. Why would you plan to leave if you thought he was dead?” 

“Sir, if I may be brutally frank, you can’t kill the devil, only try to keep a step ahead. Tonight proved me right.” 

The sheriff turned toward Rex. “Alright, what about you, Mr…” he glanced at the penciled note he had made on the pad. “Mr. Marksley. What brought you to Silver Springs?”

Rex had listened, and he realized that she was not only protecting him by putting them apart, but she was also protecting herself. A married woman coming to town with her lover? A lover that had then shot at her husband in the middle of the street? He had to think fast. 

“I was looking to earn a little money before I headed to Tarrelton. That last snow had me hunkered down with my horse in an abandoned barn for… well far longer than was comfortable, I can tell you. I saw Miss Chandler as we arrived on the road into town around the same time. I saw her pulling her wagon and I, being a gentleman, offered to let her tie it off to the horse so she could rest her arms a bit. I said goodbye outside the Golden Stag and i went in and … Well, you see, Sheriff, I’m a bit of a keen eye when it comes to firearms. I can hit a penny wedged halfway in a fencepost from a hundred yards.” he gave a little dip of his chin in punctuation. “So, they bet I couldn’t hit things, I hit ‘em, and I made enough to secure a first class ticket to Tarrelton and have leftover for hotel and a nice dinner when I get there.” 

“I heard about that.” The Sheriff nodded. “I was out of town handling him.” A glance toward the cell in which a slightly portly man with a glower sat on a bunk. “Rustling cattle. His friends stole horses from the rancher and made their getaway clean.” He grinned. “Ol Hank here tried to grab the mule and it kicked him clear out of the gate.” 

The man glared and turned on the wooden bunk, laying down facing the wall. 

The Sheriff turned back to Rex. “And what happened this morning?”

“I had come out of the Golden Stag, not wanting to hang around too long lest the people who I won money from would remember I was flush. I saw Miss Chandler’s wagon sitting there with her trunks in it and I was worried someone might walk off with them. So, I wrapped up in the tarp and I sat there until it was morning.” He bowed his head and leaned in, lowering his voice as if the following was something to keep from Regina. “I thought maybe I might persuade the lady to have breakfast with me, you know?” 

The Sheriff nodded and Rex sat back. “Well, I was talking to her and then I feel this gun at the back of my head. Some nasty looking fellow comes around from behind me, holds a gun on Miss Chandler and tells me to open her trunk and show him what was in it or he’d shoot her. I did as he asked. It was household stuff. A quilt, some clothes, books, stuff like that. He wasn’t pleased. He threatened Miss Chandler and I pulled my gun. I reckoned he was the kind of man who’d care more about his own head than anything else. He looked at me and Miss Chandler she … “ he didn’t want to admit she’d acted violently.

“I kneed him in the crotch.” She admitted with a shrug. “He had a gun pointed at my head, what else could I do?”

“Yes, she defended herself.” Rex went on. “At which point this Junior person, he stumbled back and he acted like he was going to just leave well enough alone. Then he threatened Miss Chandler, brought his gun up and I just… acted. I fired and, as I’ve said, I’m a very good shot. Put one down his barrel and blew his gun up in his hand. Then he ran off. I hope your men catch him as I, and I am sure, Miss Chandler as well, wish to press whatever charges we can.” 

“I will get his side of things, but until then, I recommend you both remain in Silver Springs until we can get this settled, one way or the other.” 

“Of course, Sheriff.” He nodded. 

“I… I suppose there’s no choice. I can’t risk going back to the cabin.” 

“There’s a lovely boarding house for ladies.” The Sheriff flipped a page and wrote something. “Mrs. Sullivan runs it. You give her this, and she’ll give you a room at a fair price, Mrs. Maldonado.” 

She frowned. “I will not answer to that name, Sir. I do not care what that paper he has says, I am not his wife.” She blushed. “It was never… consummated. In the eyes of God, I am not his wife and I never will be.” 

The Sheriff frowned at the outburst, and scratched through the name, writing again. “Miiiissss… Chaaannndddleeer.” he tore it off and handed it over. 

“Thank you.” She folded it and stood. “If that is all, I will collect my trunk and wagon and go see this Mrs. Sullivan then. I have had a very bad morning and a very cold night. I would like to rest.” 

“Of course, Ma’am.” He nodded and stood. “I’ll send one of the deputies along with your things. We’ll contact you if there’s any change.” 

“Mr. Marksley.” She bowed her head toward him, her eyes avoiding his. “Thank you again for your gallant rescue.” 

“My pleasure.” he said, feeling a heavy pain in his heart. This felt like goodbye. He was angry, confused, hurting, and he couldn’t show any of it. “I hope all this works out for you.” 

She said no more but walked out hurriedly, the door closing firmly behind her. 

The sheriff sat back down, his chair creaking as he leaned back a bit. “They say you’re a fair shot, Mr. Marksley. I know you say you’ve business in Tarrelton, but if you’re going to be stuck here, maybe I can get you to do a bit of a service while you’re waiting for things to be cleared up.” 

“What did you have in mind, Sir?”

“Well, just … teach my men a bit of what you do. Can’t hurt for them to get a bit more accurate. I’ll be willing to give you … two dollars a week and you can have a room here.”

Rex glanced to the cell and chuckled. “Doesn’t look too comfy, if I can be honest, Sheriff.” 

“No, not there. Upstairs. It ain’t fancy, but it’ll keep you out of the cold and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than the hotel.” 

Rex stood and held his hand out. “You have a deal, Sheriff. We’ll do this week-by-week?”

“Fair enough, Mr. Marksley. You can get settled in and tomorrow morning, I’ll arrange for all the boys to be ready.” he motioned toward a door behind him. 

“Tomorrow morning then, Sir.” he made his way through the door and turned sharp to move up the stairs. There were two doors, one ajar and one locked. He guessed the open one was his room. As promised, it was simple. A bed, a washstand and a chair. There was a bricked section in the midle of the wall and he supposed that must be what the stovepipe from downstairs ran through. With radiant heat, it would keep the room toasty enough. There were no windows, which made sense. Couldn’t have people sneaking in to the jailhouse. He would have to collect his things too. The key was on the inside of the door, so he took it, and locked the door behind him, securing the key and heading into Silver Springs to collect his horse and his supplies. 

Three days passed and there was no sign of Maldonaldo. The last anyone heard he had been riding, hell bent for leather, to the west. Telegrams began arriving from as far as Freeman and Bortenville detailing troubles they’d had with the man known as Anthony Maldonaldo Junior. The slight feeling of being suspects themselves vanished quickly, and Rex’s work with the deputies, while not making them anywhere near his own skill, had them hitting the cans seventy percent of the time instead of only ten. 

The boarding house was in the middle of town, and he had gone by several times. Mrs. Sullivan, the vulture-like woman who ran it was a fire-and-brimstone believer in the sin of men. That every man harbored untamed lusts that would, if given even a moment of freedom, burst forth and consume the delicate flowers of maidenhood that she sheltered within her walls. There was no men allowed even on the lawn. If, for any reason, a man had business with one of the ladies within, he would ring a bell at the gate, Sullivan would come, he would tell his business to her, and she would go back inside and pass it on. Needless to say, he had not seen Regina for a week when he, at last, spied her walking down the sidewalk, a basket on her arm. 

She still held that air of skittishness. That watchful attitude that kept her head in motion and her posture tense. He hated seeing it. She paused to speak to a trio of young women. Judging by their aprons, he guessed them to be workers in the hotel’s restaurant. He waited a moment then walked around a wide swath to come at them so his appearance would not startle them. 

“Forgive me, Ladies.” He smiled and doffed his hat, running fingers through his hair as he smiled. The hotel girls sighed and blushed, casting looks from under their lashes at him. “Miss Chandler, I hope this day finds you well?”

“Well enough, Mr. Marksley.” She gave a polite nod. 

“Marksley?” The darkest haired of the girls gasped. “You’re the one who saved our Gini’s life?”

“My manners are atrocious. Rex Marksley, pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He nodded at each of the girls. “I am glad I was there to be of service.” 

“Mr. Marksley.” A wispy blonde with bright green eyes smiled up at him. “We were just trying to convince Gini to come work with us. She’ll make a lot more than she does taking in sewing.”

“Not to mention there’s all sorts of nice men who come in to eat.” the dark haired one smiled, giving a flirtatious glance toward Rex. 

“I am happy in my work.” She said softly, and Rex could see that this whole thing had made her terrified of being out among people. Maybe she’d been that way always. He had only known her when it was just the two of them. He wanted more than anything to scoop her up and take her somewhere they could be alone. “I have a husband.” She said softly, glancing up toward Rex for only a moment. “I don’t need to find another.”

Rex felt pressed to speak. “I am sure Miss Chandler knows her mind. From what I have learned of her, she does not take kindly to being forced into things.” 

“Oh!” The plump red-head gasped. “Oh, you’re so very right. We’ll stop pressing you, Regina.” She gave a soft pat to her arm. “We had best get to the hotel anyway.” She too looked to Rex and he could see that she was, though they had never met, an ally to his cause. “Come on, girls.” She stepped away and the other two followed, waving back over their shoulders and then going head-to-head to whisper and titter as they crossed the street at the corner. 

Rex made it a point to stand well out of reach and kept his hands in plain sight. “I do hope you are well.” His voice hopefully telling her the depths of his emotions. 

“There is a service tomorrow night. Perhaps I might see you there.” 

He wasn’t one for church, but for her, he’d stomach through it. “That would be very pleasant, Miss Chandler.” he stepped back and donned his hat again. “Thank you.” He turned and walked away though it was agony. The time between now and then would be torment, but he practiced. He plotted. He made a dozen plans and threw them all out. When he crossed the churchyard the next night, he still didn’t know what he’d say. 

He saw her in a pew and took a seat in the same one, though with ample space between them. She gave the same nod of acknowledgment she gave to every other acquaintance she had made here. The pew between them filled and as the choir entered, the congregation was encouraged to turn to the proper page in the hymnal. He took the book from before him and found ‘Rock of Ages’ on page 24, ‘Just as I am’ on page 36, but page 19, ‘See, Gentle Patience Smiles on Pain’ was missing. 

He looked around and felt a tap from behind him. The round-faced ginger girl handed him a fresh hymnal and as he turned to the proper page, he nearly let the bit of paper slip out. Catching it before it slid past the book, he unfolded it covertly as he sang, his rich voice pouring out, for he was a very fine singer if it came to that. His eyes scanned the note. **120 Maple Street. Midnight.** He lifted his voice and felt every word. “_See, gentle patience smiles on pain.. see dying hope revive again…Hope wipes the tear from sorrow’s eye... _” He did not look her way, but knew she felt it too. The suffering of having to be patient in the face of pain. To force a smile when everything hurt and you almost gave up. But hope would see them through. 

He would hold her again. And this time, he was not going to let go.


	13. Chapter 13

There was no sign. It was nearly midnight when he figured that Maple street might well be aptly named and found a large maple tree, and a dusty path leading away toward a house in the process of being constructed. It was dark and empty, and he felt a small twinge of concern. He took his time circling, watching for figures in the darkened interior, the hollow windows showing nothing. He moved toward the back of the house and found the doors to the cellar, a small glow peeking around the wood. Quietly, he lifted the door. The light went out and he steeled his nerves and moved down the stone stairs quickly, gun drawn. 

The shuttered lantern opened when he reached the bottom and he blinked at the familiar face, the bright blues, the perfect freckle-speckled nose, the wild bits of twisty brown and blonde that never seemed to stay tucked away properly. 

She set the lantern down and ran to throw her arms around his neck, sobbing into his chest with a ferocity that frightened him. He held her tight, letting this wild storm of emotions roll over him and ebb before he loosened his arms or lifted his head. His shirt was soaked and he dug his hand into his pocket to pull his handkerchief out and slip it into her hands. Her head bowed, she dried her eyes and blew her nose before she stepped back. 

“I’m sorry. I saw him in the saloon and … “ 

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you leave like that?” He asked the question that had been a thorn in his side since that evening. 

“I thought over all the possibilities. I thought… if I could just get out of town and he didn’t find me, he’d have no reason to come after you. If he did find me after I left, you’d never know and he’d still have no reason to come after you. I knew if I told you, that you’d become involved. He’d either come after you, or you’d shoot him and then you’d be hung and I’d be to blame. So… telling you just didn’t have any possible happy ending.”

“I mean, why didn’t you tell me before. All those nights talking, and you never told me you had a husband.” 

“I was selfish. I wanted happiness.” She stepped back, her arms winding around herself. “I wanted to pretend he was dead, no…” She sighed. “I wanted to pretend I never met him. For just a little while, I wanted to belong to someone because _I_ chose them.” 

He could understand that. “When we… the first time.” 

“Junior tried. He couldn’t. His tackle was unwilling. His fists were pretty hard though.” She said with a dread sort of calm. “Thankfully we only had the one night together before he was arrested or he’d have stolen that from me too. Instead I got to give it freely, not have it taken away.” She sniffled and nodded. “So I’ll always be grateful for that.” 

“You said in the street that you had a husband, and you didn’t want another.” Rex flexed his fingers faintly. “If you hate him so much…” 

“No, you ass.” She huffed. “I meant you. In the eyes of the law, I’m tied to Junior but in the eyes of God… and in mine, _ you _ are my husband.”

He didn’t know what to say. He was thrilled, of course, but the truth was that, by law, she was another man’s wife. He had never knowingly interfered with a marriage. It wasn’t honorable. She should have told him. Of course, he reasoned inwardly, she never wanted to be married to this Junior person. It would be akin to blaming a rape victim for not being chaste on her wedding night. It wasn’t her fault someone had forced what she’d never give otherwise. Did he love her any less tonight than he had the night he’d found out? No. Looking at her he wanted nothing more than to take her back into his arms and never let her free of them again. 

“We’ll figure this out, somehow.” 

“There is nothing we can do, Rex. As long as he’s living, he’ll never stop hunting me. Even if he does come to understand that I have no gold, he’ll hunt me out of sheer spite. You too. He carries grudges like tattoos. Once it gets under his skin, it’s there forever.” 

“What gold does he think you have?”

She let an exasperated sigh slip free. “My father wrote to me. He said he had struck gold. My inheritance was secure. I would be rolling in riches.” She cocked her head. “I understood he’d meant the Iron Horse. It was all he ever talked about. Junior found the letter, but I never clarified what my father meant, only that he was crazy and there was no gold. I never told Junior about the Horse because he’d have stolen it. When he was arrested, I left Chicago and I came out here. I’ve lived here for nearly eight years. I allowed myself to think he’d died there. When the sheriff asked me why I was running I couldn’t ..” She sighed. “ I couldn’t tell him the truth.” 

“What is the truth, Regina?” He asked even as he feared the answer. “Why _were_ you so set on leaving?”

“I wanted to leave so you could get back to what you were doing before you got lost. You weren’t looking to find someone to settle down with. I was a … a happy accident. A lovely way to spend a month or so but you have to get back to what you’re destined for. I know that you’re not the sort of man who finds his happiness in a coop full of chickens, a pasture full of cows and a yard full of kids. You’re meant for bigger things. You have a talent that is wasted doing anything less than helping people and frankly, you can’t stay here and do that. I won’t hold you back. I won’t tie you down.” 

“Isn’t that something I should have a say in?!“ He had held his tongue and his temper in check for too long. “What if I want to stay? What if I want the... chickens and the cows and the rest of all that? I want you, Regina. Forever.” He stepped up and took hold of her arms just above the elbow. “Run away with me. Just… meet me here tomorrow night, and we’ll just go.” 

“I wish it were as easy as that, Rex.” She hung her head. “I love you so much.” 

“Then nothing else matters.” He took her chin and made her look up at him. “Nothing.”

She began weeping again, fat tears dripping from the corner of her eyes and he pulled her close. “Never again,” he said with a hitch in his own voice. “You get it out now, Regina because once we step out of this room, you are never crying for anything but joy again for the rest of your life.” 

The tears ebbed, and kisses eventually came to replace them. He had three days left on his week’s contract with the sheriff. They would stay that long. He would as far as anyone knew, ride off for Tarrelton in the brightness of a Wednesday morning and she would be seen in town each day, in no way different than any other day. Sunday would dawn to find her room ransacked, her window broken, and Miss Regina Chandler missing. Monday night, the train would stop for water in Tightwad, and quietly, a single figure would hop off the side as it pulled away again into the dark. When the train was gone, and it was nothing but crickets and starless darkness, a lamp was lit. A few minutes later, another popped to life in the dark. They met, and then were extinguished, the clandestine coupling slipping away into a future of their own making. 

The house was coming along nicely. It was similar in build to her father’s cabin. The large single room with kitchen and living space and the back washing room had a self-heating tub and the outhouse was at the end of a brick path with walls of wood, not fabric. It still didn’t have a real roof, unlike the workshop in which Rex now was fiddling with an idea he’d had a while back. 

“Regina?!” He called over his shoulder. “Where’s the bottle of Dr. Leeman’s Anti-Seizure Oil?” 

She appeared at the door, her wild hair secure beneath a bandana, her hands wiped on a towel, leaving reddish-gold stains. “I have it.” She walked over and set the squeeze bottle onto the table beside him. “You ready to tell me what that is yet?” Eyeing what looked like a limp copper octopus of wires and leather. 

“You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.” he smiled as he dripped little ruddy yellow drops onto the joints of the legs.

“I can’t show you mine until evening.” She set her chin on his shoulder, her arms sliding around his chest. “But I promise I will if you show me yours first.” 

He sighed and rolled his eyes as if exasperated, but with a sigh, he picked up the spider. “Fine.” he walked out toward the single wide oak that spread across the wide span of the two dozen acres that were theirs now. He walked out several long-legged strides and set down a sawhorse and leaned a warped board against it. 

“Here goes.” He strapped the contraption to his forearm, then another that looked like the belts bank tellers wore to dispense coins to rest against the outside of his upper arm. He lined up and shot, plunking six times into the same knothole, but when the last shot was fired, he threw his arm out and down to the side, the chamber popping open and the octopus swung down, each little tentacle pulling out the spent casing and then flicking up, grabbing from his upper arm a fresh bullet, then down again to shove it into the chamber, all in about three seconds. With a flick of his wrist, the chamber clicked back into place and six more shots were set off, two above the knothole, four below in a little smile formation. 

“Still a little bit of sticking with the removal portion.” He sounded a little disappointed. “I would like to get it down to two seconds or less.” 

She was more than impressed. Clapping softly, she grinned in his direction. “I think that three seconds is about a half minute faster than anyone else could even hope to reload so you’ll definitely have the advantage should you need it. If you made two, you could fire with one hand while the other was being reloaded. Then, there’d be no pause at all as long as your ammunition lasted anyway.” She smiled to herself in a way that made him a bit nervous. 

“Yes.” He drew the word out a bit, narrowing his eyes. “You’re up to something, I can tell.” 

“You’ll see tonight.” She patted him on the backside as she scooted past and returned to the wagon. 

It had been a strange six months since they’d snuck away from Silver Springs. They’d headed south, and took up residence in a small town on the border for several weeks before someone happened to recognize Rex and he was convinced to venture northward to attend to a small band of renegades who were robbing coaches on the trail west. Fortunately he’d stopped them in their tracks and they were all now in the custody of the US Marshals, but rather unfortunately, the coach he’d saved had been occupied by one J.B. Abbernathy, a writer who penned **‘The Daring Tales of Rex Marksley, Episode One, Guns of Justice’** a very wild and wholly inaccurate retelling of the events, soon published and sold all through the territory. As amazing as he was, the book made him seem almost inhuman in every way. He disarmed forty bandits with two shots. In reality, it _had_ been two shots, but only seven bandits, two of which had been so green they just dropped their guns out of surprise when the others had their shot out of their hands. 

He was painted as a lone gunman, prowling the west, seeking injustice and helping the downtrodden. Which, was for the most part, very true. This did lead to something neither of them had wanted. Rex was getting famous. Almost weekly he’d hear of someone come to town looking for anyone who’d heard of him. A village being menaced by a gang of thugs, a Chinese man whose friends and family were promised money and work only to find they were enslaved by the railroad and worked to death, an old miner who swore the mine was haunted and people were dying unnaturally. There was always something. And, because he paid well, Abbernathy would receive a well-plotted synopsis of each adventure, which lead to **Rex Marksley - Sagebrush Showdown, Rex Marksley and the Flower of the Orient, and Rex Marksley & The Ghosts of Devil’s Ridge**

It was a worn copy of the latest that the young man clutched as he approached the house. There was nothing higher than four inches for a quarter-mile in all directions except for the one shady oak near the house, so they saw him coming and had time to accept that their time together was once more going to be interrupted long before he arrived. 

“You are Rex Marksley?” The boy was tan and slender, standing somewhere in that space between boy and man. “I have read about you.” He held up the vivid red covered dime novel. “I have come to ask for you to help my people.” 

Rex had put the reloading gadget away in a box by then, and was smoothing his sleeves as he walked to offer a hand to the lad. “I am. What’s your name?”

“I am called Otaktay.” He looked toward Regina then back to him. “You must come, Rex Marksley.” 

“Come where, and why?” Rex motioned the boy to sit as he did, cross-legged on the ground under the shade of the oak tree. “Tell me what is going on.” 

Otaktay began slowly, but then it ran swift. There was a man, a white man, who had come to the land where Otaktay’s tribe spent the warm weather portion of the year. He had raided the village and taken many of their women. The warriors had gone after him, but they had not returned. The village was mostly the young and the old now, and they lived in fear that he would return and wipe them out entirely. A scouting party had found this man and discovered he planned to sell the women as slaves to brothels in the East, where white men paid great sums for the strangeness of a tribal woman. 

Rex glanced over to Regina, knowing she would already be moving to pack his things for the journey. She would fetch his bags and bedroll, and she would pack the wagon up and head to Mr. & Mrs. Langekamp’s where she’d remain until he returned. It was the bargain they had made. He could not go out and help anyone if he was worried over her. Mr. Langenkamp was six foot three, and wide as a mule’s back end. He would keep Regina safe. While she was away, Rex turned to Otaktay. “What is the name of this man? What does he look like? Where will I find him?”

“He has a house outside of Bartlett. He and his men are there. My mother. My sisters are there.” Otaktay spat on the ground with a curl of his lip. “ He is called The Rattlesnake King.”

“Rattlesnake King?” Rex chuckled faintly. “Why do you call him that?”

“We do not. We call him _kaga heyoka_ “ Rex knew the words general meaning to be ‘devil clown’. He suspected that the man was evil, but foolish-looking. I will show you where to find him. He wears boots of rattlesnake, belt of rattlesnake, a skin and head of rattlesnake on his hat. It is what he wishes to become perhaps.” 

“I will get your mother and sister and all the women of your tribe back, and I will see this king of the rattlesnakes is de-fanged and locked away in jail. You have my word.” 

“Thank you, Rex Marksley.” The boy looked where Regina was tying the bedroll to the back of the saddle and hanging water skins across the front. She did not look happy. He had read of all the women who inevitably fainted into Rex’s arms when he saved them, but he could not imagine this woman was one of them. 

Rex saddled up and, once he’d seen her well on her way to the neighboring farm, he and Otaktay moved quickly off to find this serpent of a man. Two days ride it had been to get to where the man’s house was. He was just as Otaktay had said. A man with the body of one who had been burly in his youth but it was quickly turning to softness, who wore boots, a belt, a hatband, all in the skin of rattlesnakes worked into the leather. He had a group of perhaps a half dozen men who prowled about the yard around the house like guard dogs. 

“You return to the village, Otaktay. I will meet you there soon. Gather what warriors you can.” 

“I will do so, Rex Marksley.” He slid back from their hiding spot in the tall grass on the hill overlooking the lone farmhouse. Rex waited until the sun was down a bit and slid through the dark toward the house. He wasn’t going to do anything more than listen for now. He pressed his slender frame up beneath a lit window, the sill lifted to let the cool night breeze drift through. 

“I think they’re planning to double-cross us.” A voice rose in the quiet, getting louder as if the speaker was crossing the room toward the window. “It’s just a gut feeling.” 

“We’ve never had an issue with them in the past, Henry.” A smoother male voice, higher in pitch than the bass tone of the first speaker. 

“My gut is never wrong, Reuben!” The first man barked.

“So we transport the women to the Whisper Canyon safehouse.” A third voice added its two cents. You and Henry can keep an eye on them, and when we’ve got our money, I’ll tell them where to go fetch them and you two will be out of there before they can even arrive.” 

“Why not just wait for them there and pick them off before they collect?” The voice Rex gathered was the man called Henry. “We can sell them to another buyer. I know a guy in N’awlins…” 

“We don’t have time.” The unnamed voice. “After this, we’re getting our shares and like dust in the wind…” a sound of blowing. “We are no more. So, we do this last deal, and we all go our separate ways. So, you two go get the women and load them up.” 

The men moved around and the light went out. This was the cue Rex needed. He made his quick way back out of the compound to watch and wait. He was an excellent shot, but he was not a cat. It was pitch black and the men who were moving the women did not do so with lanterns. It was just a mess of dark shapes in a wagon, and he could not tell prisoner from captor. He needed to go to the canyon where there would be only the two men to contend with.

He could follow on foot, but he knew little of the area. So, he veered off to the south-west and made his way to where he knew the village of Otaktay was. In the still hours just before dawn, he reached the edge of the village and found himself at the end of two rifles, held by young men who, despite their lack of years, did not look either uneducated with the workings of firearms, or unwilling to use them. 

“Otaktay.” He clasped his hands together before him, showing they were friends. The boys lowered the rifles a fraction, studying him for a moment, then the oldest gave an upward nod and two more boys he had never noticed rose from behind Rex and the four of them continued into the village. 

As Otaktay had said, there were few women younger than forty. No men younger than fifty at best. The remainder of the people were children. Otaktay was there, speaking to an older woman, her dark hair mingled with the coming gray of middle age, her hands folded in the basket of her lap as she sat on the ground before the waning fire of the night before. Rex sat opposite and within a half-hour, had told the gathering crowd what he had learned. 

“Whisper Canyon?” She had said in smooth English. “It is not a place that is easy to reach. The walls are made of thin layers of stone that weather and crack if you attempt to climb down them, and the floor of the canyon is covered in these flakes, all cracking and grinding and echoing with even the most gentle step. There is no way to reach any distance inside of it without them knowing you are coming.” 

“So let them know!” A boy perhaps a year older than Otaktay, one Rex recognized as one of the rifle-bearers, stood up, his face a mask of fury. “He says there are only two. We can defeat two. Then we take back our women!” He turned and lifted his rifle, the gathered group of boys around him yipping throatily. 

Rex shook his head. “The one called Henry. He was nervous already. Waiting for these men to attempt to betray them. If they think they are being attacked, they will simply kill your women before you can reach them and run. They are mothers. Sisters. Aunties to you. To them, they are nothing.” He eyed them cannily. “However, you have given me an idea. What is your name?”

“Ju’ahqualup,” He said with pride, his chest puffed out and his chin lifted.

“Well, Ju’ahqualup… ever heard of yodeling?” 

The sun rose over the canyon. The ramshackle hideout built into a small cave at the base of the canyon was filled by the bound and gagged bodies of the women while Henry and Rueben prowled outside, safe from above as they remained under the shelf of stone. They listened, keenly, for the sound of the gunshot that would mean their boss had sealed the deal and they would just walk away. The day drug on. No shot. Both men began to get very nervous. 

“HENRY!” A voice rang out. “REUBEN! It’s me. Don’t shoot.” 

The figure on horseback wound his way along the canyon floor. Rex now could match that third voice from the night before to the face and figure of the one known as Rattlesnake King. He dismounted and shook his head when he arrived at the spot. “You were right, Henry. They were planning to turn on us. It got heated when I told them the women weren’t there. Guns were drawn, sharp words turned to hot lead and … in the end they were all killed.” He reached into his pocket and tossed two leather purses toward the men who scrambled out of the shadows to gather them up. “That’s your share. Don’t spend it all in one place.” 

“What about the women?” Reuben pulled his pistol. 

“Don’t waste the ammunition. Just set it on fire and go.” 

Rex, from his hiding spot, saw Henry open his bag and frown. “This isn’t gold .. it’s just rocks.” Dumping out the clattering stone and dust that had filled the bag. 

The Rattlesnake King sighed. “I do wish you’d not have done that.” A loud shot sounded and Henry flew back onto the ground, his shirt now turning quickly crimson. Another crack of thunderous sound and Rueben joined his companion on the canyon floor. “I must do everything myself it seems.” Moving to his horse to retrieve a lantern and some matches. 

There was no time to waste. From beneath the bib of his shirt, where the warmth and dark had lead it to slumber, he pulled the small dove out and with a little flick of his hands, sent it to fly upward. The instant the bird’s flapping wings caught the air and its body soared up toward the daylight, Rex shoved the cotton wool into his ears. Even through it, the cacophony that the bird triggered was disconcerting. From a dozen voices, high pitched and harmonized almost, Ju’ahqualup, Otaktay and the other young warriors at the edge of the canyon yodeled down as one. 

The Rattlesnake King clapped his hands over his ears as the sound bounced around, doubled, blended into a never-ending assault of sound. It covered well the sound of boots moving quickly through the loose stones, and Rex had him dead to rights. The sound ended, and the silence was almost as painful as the overwhelming voices. 

“Step back.” Rex kept his pistol leveled at the man. “I am a man of peace, but also of justice. You will pay for your crimes, Rattlesnake King.” 

The man frowned, then with a muttered swear, he dropped the lantern and lifted his hands. “Come now..” he spoke with a quickly adorned smile as warm as a winter pond. “I’m sure that we can come to some sort of arrangement. I have powerful friends. I can get you anything you want.” 

“I only want the pleasure of seeing you in the custody of the United States Marshals, being taken away to be tried for your crimes.” 

The man laughed. “Oh, well, then fine.” He put his hands out as if expecting handcuffs. “As I said, Slim, I have very powerful friends, and they know that keeping me out of the hoosegow is good for them. The best lawyers, judges on the payroll… By next week I’ll be sipping champagne with a whore on each knee.” 

Rex sensed this was not a lie. The man was undoubtedly corrupt. He could end this right now. The temptation was strong. He knew that letting this man go would only unleash him to do more harm to the world. A single shot. He wouldn’t even feel it. Quickly Rex holstered his pistol before he succumbed. “Then I expect you will need something that will have an impact.” He crossed the space and socked him right in the jaw. 

The man’s hat flew back off his balding head, the teeth bared in fury turned red from the split lip he now had. A roar and he ran at Rex, fist drawn back. A swing Rex dodged, unprepared for the other that came from beneath directly into his breadbasket, driving the wind from his lungs in a great whoosh of air. Rex’s hands clasped together, his paired elbows brought down on the man’s shoulder as he tried to tackle him back into the canyon wall. The stones beneath their feet slippery as they parted and circled one another. 

Rex caught motion in his peripheral and knew that the young warriors were using the distraction to get down into the canyon and rescue the women, so he puffed his chest up. “I admit I was worried. People talking about the great and powerful Rattlesnake King.” Rex huffed in amusement. “Turns out you’re just a little garter snake. No…” he lifted his pinky finger and wiggled it. “You ever see a lizard lose his tail? You’re nothing but a tiny, itty-bitty little thing wiggling around that just THINKS it’s a snake when in reality... ” Rex set his foot under the loose stones and on solid ground as he crouched a bit. “You’re just meat that don’t know it’s dead yet.” 

With a roar, the Rattlesnake King barreled at him, expecting Rex to meet him, fist to fist, when, like a toreador, Rex took a page from Regina’s book, executed one of her graceful pirouettes and sidestepped him entirely. Unable to brake on the loose stones, the Rattlesnake King plowed full-speed into the canyon wall and bounced back, falling sprawled, arms and legs spread-eagled, blood pouring from his broken nose. 

He groaned in pain, barely clinging to consciousness as he looked up through bleary eyes and saw a dozen shadows, the faces of furious and vengeful women, and then all went black. When he came to again, he was stripped to his underclothes, bound hand and foot and gagged in the center of the village. 

“What will become of him.” Rex asked, not wanting to interfere with the tribe’s justice, but neither could he simply walk away and leave the man to be tortured or murdered outright. He was a man of justice, not vengeance. 

“In the mountains are the _Navezgane_. They do not come down in the spring as we do. They are traders in furs and in silver and gold. They trade only with the people. They hate white men.” He looked toward the figure on the ground. “They enslave them. They make them work in their camps. They do not speak the white man’s words, or let their slaves speak them. They have been known to cut out tongues rather than hear the white man’s words.” he said the last loud enough to assure it carried and the man on the ground twitched and cowered. “We will sell him to the Navezgane who will ensure he lives a long life full of productive work. Then we will travel to join our cousins, the Tahunsa. They will have strong warriors worthy of our women. We will make them stronger.” 

Rex nodded. He was not thrilled that the man would be enslaved, but it was the best ending he could imagine possible. “Be well, Otaktay.” He clasped the young man’s hand. 

“Thank you, Rex Marksley.” He glanced away then back. “Before you go, would you… sign my book?”

Rex chuckled and one signature later, he rode back toward home. It was the morning of the second day that the smell first touched his nose. It was faint, but as he neared it grew stronger. The tell-tale smell of smoke. Spurring his horse to a gallop he saw the trailing black cloud now rising from the distance.


	14. Chapter 14

Racing across the landscape, his mind unable to allow him to believe what his eyes and nose were saying was true. Even as he crested the hill and saw the smoldering ruins of the houses, he held tight to hope. The silence was unnatural. Even the birds and insects seemed to be holding their breath as he dismounted and shook, holding tight to the bridle to keep himself upright. He felt it in his chest, wild pain at seeing their home, their workshop, now little more than skeletal fingers of smoldering alligator hide. Panic threatened to overwhelm him, but he knew she wasn’t here. She wasn’t _here!_ He mounted again and rode hard for the Langekamp’s. 

The smell here was worse. The acrid stench of burning wood tainted by the smell of death. Here, the insects were almost deafening. The buzzing of flies around the pair of bodies sprawled in the yard. It was clear to him that they had gone down fighting. Both had rifles within easy reach, the smaller body of Mrs. Langekamp still half-covered by her husband’s, sheltering her even in death. Numb, he moved past the gory scene and into the house. The windows were shattered inward and outward, glass everywhere. A decimated vase held wilting wildflowers in the midst of porcelain shards atop the sideboard. Room after room he walked, barely aware of anything other than the quiet and the emptiness. 

Hope fluttered as each room proved to be empty of the image he feared most. Of wild blonde curls turned crimson, of her body splayed out as the Langekamp’s had been. He searched the whole house. No sign of her. He was not a fool. He could guess what had happened. Maldonado. It had to be. He’d taken her. He drifted back out the door and heard a trio of tell-tale clicks, guns pointed at him by the men on the far side of the fence. 

A moment that stretched on forever and then slowly they dipped. “Marksley?” The sheriff gave a motion to his deputies who uncocked their guns and holstered them again. “What the hell are you doing here?” Rex grit his teeth faintly. There was no love lost between sheriff Boyer and himself. Boyer wanted the power and prestige that came with the badge but was less enthusiastic about the work itself. He’d called Rex a show-off and a self-aggrandizing glory hog. A vigilante who was hardly better than the outlaws he brought in. “I got word that smoke had been seen out this way. You didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?”

“I just arrived.” he forced himself to be civil and calm. “I know who did this. His name is Anthony Maldonado Junior.” 

“And how do you know this?” He sounded dubious, his own gun still pointed a Rex as it rested on his thigh. “If you weren’t there to see it? Do you have any evidence?”

How could Rex explain? He had kept his relationship with Regina completely above board since he’d found out she was married, but still, they were living far too familiarly to be considered just friends. “Regina Chandler is missing. He has a history of threatening her. Send a telegraph to Sheriff Parrish in Silver Springs. He’ll confirm it.” 

“So, you two were living in sin and her husband came and took his wife back home? That’s why you want us to go hunting down this Maldonado? Don’t be a sore loser Marksley.” Boyer chuckled. “That’s what happens when you screw around with married women. They always go back to the husband. I’ve seen it a hundred times.” 

Rex felt fury blinding him. He knew that Boyer would do nothing to avenge the Langecamps, never lift a finger to find Regina. If he wanted it done, he would have to do it himself. He walked to his horse and pulled himself up into the saddle, riding off, going several miles before it dawned on him he had no idea where to go. He slowed his pace and his weary horse snorted and panted as it was allowed to walk at last. To find a low-life, he’d have to go where they congregated. The law never found Maldonado because they were bound by the badge. He had no such restraints. He’d make himself look like them. Talk like them. Sooner or later, he knew, someone would let something slip. Then, he knew it as sure as he knew his name, he was going to put a bullet right through Anthony Maldonado Junior’s brain. 

He thought it would be easy. Skip the razor for a week, wear the same shirt and jeans until they could have walked off on their own, drink and listen and watch in the lowest saloons, always looking for some word on Junior. Three months passed though, and nothing. Depression rose to overwhelm him, and suddenly the drinking was no longer a ruse. It became the only thing that kept his mind from seeing her face, from imagining her at her husband’s hands, to facing up to the fact that she was more than likely dead by now. He hadn’t spoken his real name since he began this foolish pursuit and as the months dragged on, even he was forgetting it. He rode from town to town, aimless, miserable, almost always drunk. 

Almost a year had passed and he was lounging in an alley outside of a makeshift opium den in the back of a Chinese laundry in Boudreaux, only half awake when something in the back of his mind twitched him to more conscious listening. 

“... riously, I’m glad he’s dead. Maldonado was a bastard.” 

Rex’s bloodshot eyes flicked open. He was dead? There would be no vengeance, no reprisal, no justice! Pushing up, he shoved the curtain aside and looked around. “I heard someone say, Maldonado. Who was it?” When no one spoke up, he pulled his gun and shot just above the head of the soberest looking one. “Next one goes in your eye socket if you don’t tell me who said that name.” 

The man pointed at a sun-baked man with a droopy black mustache and Rex stepped forward, grabbing him by the shirt and dragging him to his feet and outside of the den. He moved down the alley and shoved the shorter man against the wall with enough force to rattle the man’s teeth and, hopefully, sober him long enough to get a straight answer. 

“Where is Moldanado?” 

“Hey, man, Moldonado’s dead. Whatever problems you got, _ese_, they died with him.” 

“Who told you he was dead?” Rex could not believe it. 

“Nobody! I saw it with my own eyes. I used to work for him. One night a big fancy carriage pulls up. These three _mariposóns_ get out and ask me if Anthony Maldonado lives there. I say ‘yeah’ and they give me ten dollars to go for a walk around the block. I go, I come back, the carriage is gone. I go in, there’s Tony on the floor dead, so I ran.” 

“What about his wife?”

“Oh.” he bit his lip. “I heard that uh… she uh..” he chuckled a little. “She found some paper that proved they weren’t ever even really married. This was seven, eight months back? She broke out and came back that night with the sheriff and a circuit judge. Made him sign a paper that he was never legally her husband and had no rights over her and had it witnessed and taken to be filed with the court. Then she pulled back and punched him in the mouth so hard he lost two teeth and almost bit his tongue in half. Sheriff had to pull her off of him.” The man giggled and shook his head. “Man, that was sweet.” 

“What happened to her?” He gave the man another shake. 

“Aw, man I don’t know.” He whined, reaching up to rub at his nose. “She just vanished. Never saw her again. Wasn’t two weeks later the _cabrón_ was dead.” He gave Rex’s arm a pat. “Hey, maybe they were sent by her, eh? Payback for what he did to her.” 

“Where was this?” Rex could see the man was sinking into the lulled state of the drug and would be useless in less than a minute. 

“Hmm? Oh, um…” He screwed his face up, thinking. “Belltown. Just… just south of Lake LaCygne.” Rex let him go and he just dropped where he was, his head lolling forward. 

He knew he had to go there. He’d have to sober up and figure out where ‘there’ was. He’d do it. He’d get a map, plot his course, and hold on with both hands to the thread of hope that had, against all odds, found him after all this time. 

It took longer than he liked. The map was easy, the sobering was hard. It had become a habit, a crutch and learning to walk without it wasn’t pleasant. He could barely hold the reins his hands shook so badly. He spent two days just laying in a cave, sweating and vomiting up what water he managed to sip from his canteen before he could even find the strength to sit up. He craved the ease that the bottle would give him and that was why he’d not packed any. He didn’t leave the cave for a week, and even then he still felt uneasy and ill. He drank water, much as he could, and ate once he could keep food down. With every mile, he seemed to sweat out the sickness until he was drenched but more himself than he’d been in months. 

Another week and a half of riding in a circuitous route, needing to stop often for water and food, he reached Lake LaCygne and followed it around to the small but prosperous Belltown. The soft white puff of a steam train at the depot, the streets wide and clear, a hundred folk or more milling about as he rode into town. This place was huge. How would he find her? He knew that first, he had to undo what he’d so foolishly done a year ago. He bought new clothes. He bathed. He shaved and spent the quarter for a haircut. 

He faced himself in the mirror as the barber swept the cape off of his chest, all the little hairs it had caught flicking to the floor to be swept up later Was that man Rex Marksley? The dark hair had gained, at the temples, a small patch of white hairs at either side. His cheeks were slightly sunken in, his skin was pale where the beard had covered it, but the main difference was his eyes. They were shadowed beneath with swaths of gray, their hazel seemed darker and though it was impossible to quantify, they seemed older than the face they inhabited. 

“I’m looking for someone.” he directed his question to the barber and those customers who remained. “Shoulder length blonde hair, curly? Blue eyes, freckles on her nose, standing about so high” he gestured to the spot just beneath his chin where she fit so perfectly. The men shook their heads in unison almost. None of them had seen a woman of that description. So it fared the rest of the day. He tried again the next and the day after that. Nothing.

The sound of the piano and laughter, the siren call of the saloon drifted in the air. Depression was pulling at him to give up. She could be anywhere by now. He would never find her. He should just accept it and move on.

Though it had been a year since he had held her in his arms he could feel her there still, like the phantom limb of an amputee. The drink dulled that sense memory but made the memories he pushed down by his conscious mind swim to the fore where her eyes and lips tempted him, promised delight and delivered in a warm, homey place where nothing existed but them. It was an impossible choice Drown the body in drink and let the mind suffer, or retain his control and feel that hollow ache in his heart.

He watched as a man, a prosperous man judging by the fine waistcoat and portly figure, tottered out of the saloon. He stumbled but caught himself by grabbing ahold of the hitching post, swaying and giggling as he got his feet back under him. He wavered a moment then surged forward toward Rex.

"Heeey." The man waved as though they were old friends and stopped close by, his pale eyes watery and unfocused for a moment. "What are you doing out _here_? The fun is in there!"

"Maybe it's not my kind of fun.". Rex offered as politely as he could. 

The man blew a boozy raspberry and waved his hand in dismissal. "It's everybody's kind of fun." He blinked and then smiled, tapping the side of his nose. "Ah, I remember now. You're looking for something _special._ well, in that case, you'll be damned glad you met me." He fumbled in his pockets and, after a minute of searching, pulled out a small glossy playing card, holding it out with a little bow. “Your ticket to paradise.” 

Rex just looked at it, arms still folded across his chest. He was in no mood for cards. “I’m not a gambling man.” 

“Oh, but it’s no gamble.” The man grinned and leaned closer, his whiskey-soaked breath washing over Rex’s face as he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You can’t get past the door without it.” The man slid the card into Rex’s pocket. “Six of hearts.” He smiled as he stepped back, stumbling a bit. “You show that at the garden gate. Maybe you can turn it into a queen.” He gave wink and toddled off down the street, singing ‘Lorena’ as he weaved back and forth along the street. 

Rex rolled his eyes and pulled the card from his pocket. As the man had said, it was the six of hearts, but it was the back that intrigued him. It was a kaleidoscope of colorful flowers, all manner from roses to daisies, lilies-of-the-valley, and chrysanthemums. Looking more closely, he could see tiny letters across the petals, in the background, around the border. He stepped away and moved to find better light. 

In the parlor of the hotel, he sat with the card in hand, a pad and pencil in the other. He wrote the words as he found them though they made no sense at first. Then, as more were added, it became clear that it mattered in what order you wrote them. Six of hearts, so he began at the bottom center of the card and wrote going clockwise. He looked over the sentence and noted there were rhymes, so he broke it at each one.

Hangman tree and death of sun  
Five leagues warm face minus one  
Sinister fingers in the shade  
Two leagues more your fortune made 

They were directions. To where? He wasn’t sure. The man had implied it was perhaps some sort of brothel. The idea made him feel ill. And angry. It had been a year. More than a year since he’d allowed himself to touch a woman, even Regina. He was not feeling particularly froggy to leap in the direction of the nearest whorehouse, but maybe that was what he needed. To get back on the proverbial horse. He turned the card over in his fingers and then shoved it back into his pocket. He stalked off to his room and laid down, though it was hours before sleep took him.

He thought about it all the next day. It was like an insect bite that he couldn’t reach. It kept itching at him and he couldn’t concentrate. He read and re-read the poem he’d jotted down. Hangman tree? Well, that was something he found out was not so distant. They had a perfectly admirable gallows now, but a few decades ago, they’d strung up the convicted on a twisted oak about a mile outside of the south edge of town. ‘Death of sun’ well, that was obviously sunset. “Five leagues face warmed,” he said to himself as he turned west, where the setting sun would warm his face. He had been in the saddle long enough to measure distance by gait and he was coming up on the third league when he glanced at the paper. Minus one. At four leagues, he turned, his left hand now facing east, he rode south again for another seven miles before he caught sight of what had to be the place. 

A tall white wooden fence circled the outer edge of what was about four acres. Beyond it was an open field in which two types of animals moved. Cattle, and small gray birds known as guinea fowl. The only path past the gate was a similarly fenced road that ran up to the next gate, beyond which was a beautiful garden, a trim yard, and a three-story Queen Anne style house with a large wrap-around veranda. One could try to jump the fence and make their way to the house without using the road. Of course, if the bulls didn’t get you, the guinea fowl would raise such a ruckus that everyone within two miles would know they’d been disturbed. Digging his heels into the horse’s ribs, he made a click with his tongue and set the beast into motion once more, walking toward the gate. Two men stood guard, both in black trousers and shirts and red suspenders. One moved toward him, hand set on the gun at his hip. The other stood by, watching. One hand rested on his own gun, the other on a pull rope to a large brass bell. 

“Card.” The man at his side said, his hand held out. 

Rex passed it over and the man looked at it carefully. “Six of hearts.” The man at the bell stepped away and retrieved a notebook, flipping through, then looking up at Rex, eyes narrowed. 

“No match.”

Both men drew and the closer one spoke up. “Where did you get this card?”

“A man gave it to me. Said it was.. My ticket to paradise.” Rex was ready to just ride away but was fairly sure if he tried he’d be shot in the back. 

“Describe him” the other man speaking up. 

“Um.. about five feet ten, losing his hair, kept it short. Really pale blue eyes, pudgy, fancy waistcoat, gold pocket watch, drunk..” 

The man with the notebook nodded and the guns lowered. “Can’t be too careful. We’ll keep the card for your patron to collect. Enjoy your stroll in the garden.” The gate was pulled open and he was gestured inside. Well, he was here, might as well go the last few yards. Riding up the hill, he could hear the cries of the birds announcing his presence. The second gate, a wall of white pickets seven feet tall, was manned as well. “Welcome, Sir. Please dismount.” 

Rex slid out of the saddle and eyed the young lad coming closer as the officious man with the fine vest spoke. “Your card?”

“The men at the other gate took it.” Rex frowned. 

“Oh, I know, Sir. Surely you remember what it was.” 

“Six of hearts.” 

“Ah” the man gave a nod to the boy who moved to hold out his hand for the reins. “Toby here will take your horse to our stable, see it is watered, given some good hay, and has as pleasant a time here as we hope you have, Sir.” He shifted through a deck of cards as he spoke, the six of hearts then slid into a copper frame on the front of a wooden crate. “Your weapons will be returned to you as you depart, Sir.” 

Rex huffed and tossed the reins to the boy, unbuckling his gun belt and putting his weapons into the box. “You want me to strip too?”

“No Sir, that isn’t required.” He lifted what looked like a slingshot without a sling, instead, a large sleigh bell was hung by a heavy cord. He jangled it across Rex’s chest, over his arms, down his back and each leg. At the left, it stopped making noise. It would jingle until it hit his ankle then stop with a metallic ‘tink’ sound. “Ah, Sir? I think you may have accidentally overlooked something.” 

Rex tugged up his jeans and pulled the knife from his boot and set it in the box. 

“Thank you, Sir.” He opened the gate. “Do have a pleasant stay.” 

Rex stepped inside and the gate closed behind him. Now, he could see the place fully. There was a flower garden that would rival any fine house in Chicago or Kansas City. A large spreading tree had a long swing suspended by ropes from a heavy bough. The house radiated warmth and elegance, the windows open to let the cool breeze drift through. He couldn’t face the house yet. He stuck his hands in his pockets and began to walk along the path. The flowers were in trim beds and the smell was heavenly, but he still felt like hell. Behind the house, flowers gave way to more sensible plantings. A large vegetable garden and a line of chicken coops. This far out of town, they would have to be fairly self-sustaining he supposed. 

He took a lean under a spreading apple tree and crossed his arms. A pasture full of cattle, coop full of chickens… all this place had to acquire to make it the paradise promised to him was a yard full of children. Not that such would be appropriate here. He heard a screen door swing shut and drew back against the trunk, not yet in the mood to have his respite disturbed. One of the girls was heading into the garden. He watched her walk and with every step, he grew more certain. She stepped deftly to the side, a graceful twist of her body and the voice he had heard in every dream he had suffered for a year. 

“Stupid moles!” Regina snapped “ Stay away from our garden you sneaky little bastards!”

He stood still, frozen to the spot. So many thoughts, so many feelings overwhelmed him and he could not function. He felt unbelievable joy and terrible anger. His mind flashed to the time she had played at harlot for him. How convincing she had been. He envisioned her when the sun went down here. When the girls of the house were all satin and silks and bared stockings in the laps of card holders. Jealousy swamped good sense. He saw her bending and pulling carrots and all he could think about was her naked rump pressed against his hips, her hair was longer. Smoother. It was plaited tightly into a braid that ran down the middle of her back. It was making him furious that it was longer. That it was restrained. He wanted her like she’d been. Like she was supposed to be. Short-haired and innocent and HIS! 

She lifted her face to the sun, her eyes closed, bathed in the afternoon glow, he could see her clearly now. She looked as beautiful as he remembered. More perhaps. She smiled softly, the way she used to smile when a pleasant thought drifted through her mind. What business had she being happy!? He was drowning in misery and she was smiling like an angel in the garden of a whorehouse? He pushed away from the tree, his blood boiling. 

His steps hard and fast, he stalked toward her. She opened her eyes and the blues widened. “Rex!?” She gasped but it was too late. He had her by the arms and was jerking her up. 

“You… you…” he couldn’t say the words that were clawing at his mind. Vile curses that his head conjured but even his broken heart could not allow breath. Instead, he shoved her back away from him. “A year. A year I have been searching for you. No word. Nothing!” he advanced and she backed away, terror in her eyes. “I thought you were dead.” he looked her over, his lip curling. “Now I almost wish you were.” 

“I couldn’t write for months. Junior had me locked up … when I could, I did! I sent people to the house, but you were gone. I sent a story to Abbernathy!” 

Part of him heard, but he was out of control. “I shouldn’t be surprised you took to whoring. If you’re good at something, might as well make money while you can..” He dug in his jeans and pulled out his money clip, waving the contents in her face as he snarled. “Thirty-seven dollars. You’re mine until it’s gone.” He threw it down at her feet then pulled her against him and kissed her, hard. A punishment that tasted of copper.

He felt her fighting, his hands ensnaring her hands and twisting her arms behind her back as he bent her against him. He devoured her mouth and felt her fighting ebb. “Good little kitty. Keep those claws tucked away.” his lips only inches from hers. “And I won’t have to get rough.” Inside, a part of him was screaming, his better angels trying to be heard over the hot fire the devil set inside his brain. He bent his head and ran his tongue along her jaw. Sweet Christ she tasted good. Like a sugar cookie with candied violets. 

Long slender fingers wrapped to hold both wrists in one hand so the other could lift and pull at her collar until the buttons snapped off and he could get to the joint of neck and shoulder, a ravenous monster like Polidori’s Lord Ruthven, his teeth leaving marks as his suckling did, her cries of pain barely piercing the thudding rush of his heartbeat in his ears. He bore her to the ground, his hands catching her arms again and stretching them overhead as he kissed her again, his body a mass of anger and fury. She was so perfect, every part of her was as he remembered, fitting him in a way that made the demons purr. He felt her moan, arch into him, and he reveled. He felt something hard poke him in the small of the back, then again, and he lifted his head to look. 

Behind him, a dark-skinned woman in a red dress, her eyes full of fury stood with a shotgun in hand. “Ya’ll got two seconds to get the hell off my accountant before I blow your head clean to the next county!” 

“Accountant?” He said dully, and with a flip of her gun, the end of the stock came down hard against his temple and he saw stars only for a moment before blackness swallowed them.


	15. Chapter 15

Regina sat in the chair by the window, simmering silently. Her tongue poked incessantly at the cuts his teeth had made in her lower lip when he’d kissed her so brutally. She glanced over toward him, his slumbering profile painted gold by the afternoon sun. From downstairs, the music reached all the way up to the attic, though it was faint. She warred between wanting to go cuddle with him and wanting to cave his head in with a brick. 

When she’d seen him, she’d been overjoyed. She’d left so many clues for him, she was surprised it took him so long to get here, but it didn’t matter. The moment she’d seen him, the months seemed a small price to pay for the happiness she felt. For all of two seconds anyway. He was changed. Gone was the tender man she had pined for. The kind and gentle soul who owned her heart. He wouldn’t listen. If he’d just let her explain. Shaking her head she stood and began pacing, her arms folded tightly beneath her bust. 

“He awake yet?” A voice from the door, Eula stood, her peacock fan folded up in the crook of her arm, the cocoa brown skin glowing warmly above the elegant neckline. 

“No, Ma’am.” She sighed. 

“You sure you want to be up here alone? He didn’t strike me as much of a gentleman, Regina.” Her eyes giving him a dubious once-over. 

“I will be fine” She said quietly, not really convinced of that now. “Soon as he’s up and acting right, I’ll see that he is out of here.” 

“Honey…” the woman sighed and moved in, taking hold of Regina’s hand. “You ain’t talked about anything _but_ this man since I met you. Ya’ll talk long as you need to get things straight. If he goes, I want you to have no doubts it was what you wanted. You hear me?”

“Yes, Ma’am. I understand.” She offered a wan smile. “No doubts.” 

A reassuring pat to the arm and she sashayed out and the sound of footsteps down the stairs faded. 

A groan from the bed had her turning sharply. His brow was creased and she felt a pang of sympathy. His temple bore a huge knot and a dark purple bruise that would only get worse. Still, he deserved it. She moved back to the chair and waited. 

It was still several minutes before he managed to open his eyes. He groaned and touched the goose egg on his head, swearing under his breath. “What… what happened?”

“You were hit in the head with the end of a shotgun. I’d be thanking your lucky stars she didn’t choose to use the business end. That’s usually how Eula deals with men who hurt women.” 

He sat up, then fell back, groaning and covered his eyes with his hand. He lay there, breathing heavily for several seconds until the no doubt painful throb dimmed. “I will get you some willow bark for that headache.” She stood and walked toward the door. 

“No.” he groaned. “Please don’t leave me again.” 

She stopped with her hand on the door. “I did not leave you, Rex. I was drug out of that house as it burned, kicking and screaming, and I was shoved in a steamer trunk.” She glared back across her shoulder. “I will be right back with your medicine. You will take it, and when you are back on your feet, you will get on your horse and ride away.” She closed the door behind her and stamped down the stairs, taking the back way to the kitchen to measure out a dosage of the dried and powdered willow bark, then adding a bit of sugar to cut the terrible bitterness. 

The packet and a glass of water in hand, she moved back up the stairs. How dare he!? How could he call what had happened ‘leaving him’? Did he honestly have the gall to imply she had gone because she wanted to? She opened the door and found him sitting up on the edge of the bed, his face pale and wan. She couldn’t allow herself to feel sympathy. She dumped the powder in the water and swirled it around until it was dissolved. “Drink it.” She slammed the glass on the side table, aware that the noise made him wince. 

“I.. I’m sorry.” he said quietly. “For everything.” He looked up at her, his limpid puppy-dog gaze breaking her heart. 

“Well, you should be.” She picked the glass up and put it in his hand. “Drink it.” He took a sip and then made a face, lowering it. “All of it. Down to the dregs.” He groaned but drained the glass and coughed faintly, smacking his tongue at the aftertaste. She took the glass and set it back down on the table, though more gently this time. “Why did you come here, Rex? Why now. Surely you’ve known for months where to find me.”

“No.” He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t know. I … I’ve been looking for you since you were stolen. I came home and … everything was burned.” He looked up at her. “Please… tell me what happened?”

“Junior found me. He and a gang he’d managed to gather came in just as we were sitting down to breakfast. Bas and Anje told me to run out the back and they went out front to confront him. I tried to warn them…” She pushed down the memory, her hands tightly gripping one another before her waist. “They shot them where they stood. Then I heard the back door breaking and I hid. He couldn’t find me, so .. he set the place on fire. I couldn’t help but cough and .. they found me and threw me in the trunk and when they opened it again I was in a room with no windows, no furniture. Nothing but a chamber pot and a blanket.” 

She returned to her chair, eyes turned to the coming dusk outside the window. “I knew if I fought him, I would be killed. My only thought was that I had to survive. For us.” She swallowed hard. “He thought he broke me. He got sloppy. I got out and I went through his desk looking for proof of his crimes. Do you know what I found? The so-called marriage license he’d been lording over me? It was riddled with inconsistencies. I confronted him, and he had the audacity to confess that it had been no judge at all, but a friend. We were never legally wed. So, I waited until dark, I used the key I had pocketed and I went to town. I wanted more than anything to be free of him. Legally, honestly free. He would not produce the license, and when I told the sheriff where it was, he couldn’t deny that my accusations were true. The judge made him sign that he was not my husband, nor had he ever been. That he had no hold over my life, my person, or my properties and then he took it with him to be filed in the courthouse.” She chuckled dryly. “Then I admit I … I lost my temper and I spent a night in jail.” 

She glanced over, and he was just sitting there, staring at her. “Turns out if I’d have waited two weeks I’d have been free of him anyway. Someone killed him. They thought it might have been me, but I was in a quilting circle with seven other women, including the mayor’s wife the whole of that evening until near ten.” Shrugging, she looked back out the window, unable to bear the weight of his gaze. “I was working to get enough money to make my way back. I sent a story to Mr. Abbernathy. He published it about a month or so after Junior died. The tale of Rex Marksley coming to swan lake and finding the villain already dead, he had to solve the mystery and he met up and had a passionate flirtation with an ex-ballerina who worked in the hotel.” 

“I … I don’t read those things. They’re embarrassing.” He grumbled though he thought now how stupid he’d been not to notice there’d been one published after the kidnapping.

“I earned enough to get back home. I talked to Sheriff Boyer. He told me he’d not seen you since you brought in the Moorehouse gang. He didn’t know where you were either. I left a message with him for you. I waited as long as I could, but… I had to get out of there. I traveled back here, though it took me a while to get here. Every stop, every town, I asked about you. A few knew you from the books but nobody could find Rex Marksley anywhere. It was like you vanished off the face of the Earth.” She couldn’t help that her frustration filled her words. “Still, there was the book. I kept hope alive that you’d read it and find your way to Lake LaCygne.” 

“Why did you come here though? Why… sell yourself like this?”

“I am not a whore, Rex.” She said peevishly. “I met Eula on the road and we got to talking. She knows what it’s like to be locked up. Enslaved by a man who believes he can own someone.” She shook her head. “This place is exactly what you think it is. Yes, the girls here are whores. What else can they be when they’ve been raped by their own fathers? By feckless boys who got what they wanted then made damn sure the girl’s name was tied to ruin while his was left unscratched? Cast out by their families? Here, they are allowed to earn their money, and then when they have, I make them a whole new life.” She stood up, her chin lifting proudly as she struck a match and lit the lamps around the room. 

“I peruse the court records of births and deaths, I have others in other towns doing the same at my behest. I find names and dates and the girls leave here with a history that isn’t their own. They’re widows with sad tales of dead husbands and surprising insurance policies that make a single woman with money very explainable. They settle in a new town and many find good, decent men who are content to have a wife who isn’t a virgin now that she’s got a decent Godly excuse for it.” She cast an icy glance his way. “And I keep the accounts straight.” 

“This isn’t your room?” He sank back against the pillows, his tone sounding slightly drowsy. 

“No, it is Juniper’s. Or, at least that was her name last week. Her new name is not your business. Terrible. Her poor husband dying before he could even see his own child born.” She tsked softly and sighed dramatically, then sobered. “Or so the whole world believes, and it’s belief that matters, right? Just like you believed I was a whore without even asking.” 

“Regina... I didn’t think..” 

“No. You didn’t. You didn’t think.” Her eyes welled up and she turned back to stand and face the window. Long seconds stretched on, her heart hammering in her chest painfully. “How did you find me?”

“Man.” He groaned and set his hands on his eyes, as if the lamps were too bright. “Man in town gave me a card.” 

She turned and blinked. “What man?”

“Hmm? Mmm… balding. Rich. Kind of fat.” 

“Very pale eyes?”

“Yes.” Rex groaned. “You know him?”

“I do. He is a patron of the establishment. Not in the way that you’re thinking either. He is a doctor. He is the one who checks the girls and every potential card holder for disease. He is like an uncle to these girls. We talk whenever he’s out here and I told him all about you.” 

Rex stared at the ceiling. “He… he gave me the card and I… I didn’t really pay attention. He said I could turn the six of hearts into a queen.” He glanced over at her as if he had just noticed she was there. “He was trying to tell me you were here.” 

“So you didn’t know I was here but came anyway. So it’s perfectly fine for you to come looking for a whore but if I happened to be one, that’s somehow unforgivable?” She couldn’t stop that she was overcome with an urge to slap him for his double standard. “Fine for you to go about sticking every willing woman between here and the Canadian border but I have to live like a nun because you _might_ be alive? _Might_ show up someday and decide that you want me to start living again now that his high holiness Rex Marksley is back?” She stalked toward the door. “Now that I know what you came for, I’ll send someone up.” She slammed the door behind her and marched down the stairs. She avoided the social part of the house out of habit. She paced in the kitchen until one of the girls happened in to get a fresh bottle from the pantry. 

“Hyacinth, who is free at the moment?”

The girl blinked and thought for a second. “Lily and Daisy have beaus, but Poppy and Iris are just sitting on the veranda.” 

“Could you please send Iris to Juniper’s room? As a favor. Tell her to be gentle, alright?”

“I can do that.” She collected the brandy and swished out of the room, her ringlets bouncing as she did so. That task done, she made her way out the back door, down through the dark yard to the room above the stables that served as her home. In the privacy and quiet, she was free to give in to the heart-wrenching sobs, beating her pillow and screaming out her misery, knowing the horses wouldn’t tell a soul what they’d heard.

Rex lay there, his head throbbing, the sound of the slamming door only made it worse. She had gone home. Had he? No. Not once since he’d left the smoldering ruins. And that goddamn Boyer had lied. Said he’d not seen him. Not since a month before he’d found him at the house. He knew that Rex was looking for her and he’d still lied. Son of a bitch! Abbernathy? Why hadn’t he even once reached out to him? Regina had been the one who sent him all those stupid write-ups of his ‘adventures’. Why didn’t it occur to him that Abbernathy, who had a permanent address, might have heard from her? Then he’d just crawled into a bottle like a coward. He helped no one, not her, not the world, most off all not himself. 

He’d been wounded when he found out she was married. That she planned to just leave him without a word. Her cavalier attitude to it all had convinced him she didn’t really love him. It made a part of him accept she was gone. If he’d believed with his whole heart she was out there, could he have so easily let a year go by like it did? He heard the door and opened his eyes, prepared to fight, to beg, to crawl, whatever it took to make things right with her. Only it wasn’t Regina who was moving toward the bed. 

The girl was, to Rex’s eyes, very young. She wore no rouge or lipstain, her dress was simple and white, her hair in paired braids of dark brown over her shoulders tied with ribbon at the ends. She was carrying a tray as she walked to the edge of the bed. “Good evening, Sir.” Her brown eyes expressive as she looked up at him shyly. “I heard you had a little bump.” From the tray she lifted a damp cloth and held it out, the cool fabric dampening Rex’s fingers as he took it and set it against his throbbing noggin. 

“Thank you.” 

The girl nodded. “There’s a sandwich and some pickles if you get to feeling peckish.” the tray set aside on the chair beside the window. “In the interim, I’ve been sent to keep an eye on you.” 

Rex laid back, the rag across his eyes and forehead, groaning softly, his tongue prepared to put forth that he didn’t need to be watched like this was his deathbed when he felt the mattress shift. He pulled the cloth up and peeked as she settled beside him, sitting with one arm on the other side of his hips, braced up as she sat with her legs drawn up, gazing down at him. 

“Um...Young lady, I do think you might be a bit close. I promise you can watch me from afar and I will be fine.” 

She pouted a bit. “What, you don’t think I’m pretty?”

“You’re a very pretty girl, but that’s the point. You’re a lovely _girl_.” 

“I’m not really that young” She smiled and began to undo her braid on the right side. “I just have a card that likes me to pretend I am.” She chuckled and leaned over his chest. “I’m almost sixteen.” 

Rex was appalled. He set his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back as he scooted up to a sitting position against the pillows. “Miss, that’s ... “ he eyed her as she ran her fingers through her undone hair. “That’s horrible.” He could not believe that Regina would willingly be encouraging this sort of thing. Surely she knew. 

“Oh, don’t be silly.” She chuckled and drew one foot up to unbutton her shoe. “It is what it is. I’ve been doing this since I was eight.” She tossed her shoes off the bed and Rex slid quickly out of bed before she could remove anything else. 

“Eight?” He was going to throw up. He looked around for something and found only the basin at the washstand. Thankfully, his stomach had nothing to give and he just violently heaved, his legs shaking as he sank to the ground, cradling the bowl against his chest as he panted. He looked up at the girl on the bed, her hair in smooth dark waves framing her impish face. “How?”

“Oh, my mama traded me for laudanum. I was scared at first, but Mister was good to me. He made me his special girl until I got too old. Then he traded with a friend and I had a new Daddy.” She slid off the bed with the wet rag he’d left behind and knelt down, wiping at his lips and sighing softly. “When I started bleeding down there, he sent me into the store and when I came out, he was gone.” She shrugged. “If you don’t have a Daddy to take care of you, bad things can happen.” She folded the cloth, her head bowed and he surmised that they had. “But a few years later, Eula found me. She brought me here. Gave me medicine and food and pretty clothes and when I’m ready, when this doesn’t make me happy anymore, Queenie and her will give me a whole new life.” 

“You should be in school. Learning to ... be something else.” He couldn’t wrap his head around any of this. 

She chuckled. “You think I just play mattress rodeo all day and night?” She rolled her eyes at the thought. “I know how to read any book you put in front of me. I know my pluses and minuses and times and gazintas.” 

Rex was pulled from his own train of thought. “Gazinta?”

“Yeah. Two gazinta four twice, eight gazinta 32 four times…” 

He couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. “Yes, I see. Very important.” 

“And Queenie is a very good teacher. She tells us how to sit and how to drink tea and how to speak and how to act like a real lady so when we leave here, we can get decent work if we want it or a decent husband if we don’t. Whore is what we do. It isn’t who we are.” She gave a little shrug and lifted the cloth to set the cool square against his temple. “That’s what she always says.” 

He took the cloth and nodded, rising to keep a distance between them. Not that he felt even a mote of attraction, but he did not want her to even consider him the sort who might. “That’s wise I suppose.” Regina had been right to say that a girl who was found to be unchaste would not fare well in the world outside this place. Twisted as it was, she was making a life for herself, and though he was saddened and disgusted at the idea she was sleeping with men for money, she did not seem at all unhappy. Maybe she just didn’t know better. 

He picked up one of the pickles from the tray. He could almost hear Regina’s voice in his head. _Better than what? She doesn’t know she was supposed to hate herself? Supposed to feel filthy and worthless and ashamed because of something that happened to her when she had no control? Because men treat her like dirt, she should think they’re right? No. Look at her. She thinks they’re stupid. Weak, silly, fools who pant like overheated dogs and if she’s going to be used, she’s going to use them right back. _ He found himself feeling as if he were as guilty as any client here. Had he not judged the women, and Regina even, as being somehow less-than because of what they did? Who was he to judge? 

“So, what would you like to do when you leave here?” He had to think of a conversational topic to turn his mind from his own self-recrimination. 

“I was thinking maybe I’ll be a nurse.” She bounced faintly on the edge of the bed as she sat down. “I mean, that’s why Queenie sent me up to take care of you.” 

“Reg..I mean, Queenie sent you?” He looked at her as she plucked up one of the abandoned ribbons and tied her loose hair into a ponytail. 

“Naturally. Rumor is you’re him.” She chuckled and patted the bed when she noted his slight waver at the window. “You can lie back down, I’m not here to do you any harm.” 

“I just… I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” 

“Sir, I could tell that how I looked was bothering you. I was only trying to get rid of the folderal that made me look younger than I am. I’m not here for you, I’m here for her. Because she was worried about you. Lie down,I promise I’ll stay well out of the reach of temptation.” Her tone he now gathered was that of sarcasm and teasing. 

He was grateful for the bed as he collapsed into it. A place where he could let the world spin and feel safe that he wouldn’t fall. He lay very still until the feeling ebbed and his brain again began grinding away. “You said something earlier. Him?” 

“They say Queenie has a husband somewhere. Love of her life. Lost him somehow. She pines like I don’t know what. But she never ever speaks his name out loud. That’s why I didn’t ask yours. In case you’re him. She has a right to her secrets.”

He lay quietly and nodded. She did. She had a right to her secrets. Always had. She’d kept a big one, but in the end it had been hers to keep. He wasn’t owed a thing. She never mislead him. Never spoke of forever. Never hinted that she wanted what he’d just assumed every woman wanted. He’d treated her abominably. He owed her more than an apology. 

“I never asked your name either.” he muttered. 

“No, you didn’t. That says something.” 

He tried to think of what she might mean, but sleep took him before he could.


	16. Chapter 16

When next he woke, he was alone. The window was open, the warm breeze sending the curtains to drift out, then back as if the room itself were breathing. The sandwich and pickles were gone, having been replaced by a small plate of some kind of sweet buns. He sat up, his head throbbing still, but the dizziness stayed away if he moved cautiously. He needed the outhouse. For a moment, as his fingers wrapped around the doorknob, he feared he’d find it locked, but it twisted just fine and he quietly made his way down the stairs. 

It was silent. Still. Unnerving until he realized that in a place like this, they wouldn’t rise with the chickens. ‘_They rise with the cocks’_ a smirk as the thought popped into his head unbidden. The stairs creaked softly under his bare feet, his boots in hand as he tiptoed down into the front hall and then looked around. There was a parlor through the door on the right of him, and a dining room to the left. Turning, he saw a shorter hallway and took it, figuring if it lead to the back, it would lead to the right place eventually. 

“I didn’t take you for a coward.” A voice broke the tense silence of his sneaking. 

He whirled around, his boots dropped as his hand instinctively dropped to his hip, finding nothing there. At the door to the dining room, arms folded, he saw again the dark-skinned woman he’d met, if you could call it a meeting, in the garden. She was wearing a dressing gown of yellow silk, her arms folded beneath her prodigious bosom. Her hair was hidden by a madras tigon of the same color that made her seem taller and more imposing. 

“I’m looking for the outhouse.” He replied in a hushed tone, though peevish.

She chuckled and gestured that he was indeed going in the right direction. “Through the kitchen.”

He picked up his boots and found his way, the faint light coming through the little crescent moon cut-out in the door casting its image on the wall, shivering as it was filtered through the leaves of a distant tree. How could she call him a coward? He wasn’t trying to abscond unseen! Though now he considered it, he could. It shouldn’t be too hard to find the stables. Get his horse and go. They probably paid no mind to who was leaving the place. She was obviously happy here. Doing good works and helping folks. Wasn’t that what he used to believe was important? 

“She hates you.” He said to himself as he did up his jeans. “Has every right to.” He kicked himself again for being how he was. Jealous and possessive and mean. He should just go. Ride off and let her go back to her life. He couldn’t just go. He wanted her to know that he was sorry. That he was going _for_ her, not because of her. To apologize for his ruining her happiness and make it clear he loved her and would always do so, but knew she was better off without him. “But I’m not better without her!” He kicked the front of the seat and winced almost in the same instant his bare toes came into contact with the wood box, having forgotten his boots were waiting outside for him where he’d dropped them. He bit back a string of very rude words and pushed open the door, picking up the boots and limping for the back door of the house. 

In the kitchen, he smelled coffee as the woman in yellow was pouring him a cup, sliding it across the small high table in the center of the room. “Eula.” She put a name to the face. “And you’re Rex.” She said the last quietly and he recalled the girl from the night before saying that his name was not spoken around here. That the name of the lost love of the one they called Queenie was not something anyone knew. “Sit.” She gestured to the wooden stool on the side of the table.

“Thank you,”Rex pulled it out and lifted the coffee, drinking a good half before he lowered it. It burned all the way down, but he was both thirsty and in need of the boost that coffee gave. He found himself unable to look the woman in the eye, still a bit uneasy as he settled into the stool and cradled the mug in his palms. “I won’t overstay my welcome, Ma’am. I know that you’ve got business to do and me in one of the beds is one less that you’ve got to..”

“Shut up.” She said with a soft huff of breath. “You’re all mouth and no mind, Marksley” She set her hand on her hip, the other laid against the other side of the tabletop. “My business is my business, and none of yours. If I wanted you out, Son, you’d be halfway to Mexico by now.” 

Rex could tell she was not the sort to tolerate backtalk, so he didn’t offer any. He held his tongue and sipped at the black coffee, eyes averted. 

“Listen” She reached up and gently pulled his hand down until the mug settled on the table. “That girl loves you. I can’t see the appeal, you’re about as meaty as a flagpole, you’re bad-tempered and I can tell by your face you drink too much.” 

He opened his mouth to argue but closed it again. He hadn’t touched a drop in weeks, but before that, yeah, he’d been a low-down drunk and as useless as tits on a bull. Bad-tempered? What evidence to the contrary had he given? Reaching up hesitantly to brush his hair from his forehead and the large lump still throbbing faintly. He had earned that. Skinny? More than ever without the benefit of someone to keep him in three meals a day. “I don’t deserve her.” 

“Ha.” She huffed in amusement. “Tell me something I don’t know, Stringbean.” She took his chin and made him look up. “Thank God love don’t have a damn thing to do with deserving. Lots of folks don’t deserve what they get and lots who do go hungry for it. Deserve it or not, it’s yours. Question is, what are you going to do about it?”

“I can’t just go and say ‘I’m sorry, I was an ass, please forgive me’. If I filled every room of this place with flowers and wrote poems so great the paper would stretch to the ocean… it wouldn’t be enough. I let her down. I was stupid. I was selfish.” He lifted the cup again and took a deeper swig now that it had cooled a bit. “I hurt her. On purpose. I _wanted_ to hurt her for looking happy when I was so… so damn miserable. For..” he felt his heart cracking. “For being able to move on and forget me when I was still dying a little more every day because she was gone.” 

“Oh, honey.” She shook her head and patted his arm. “You got it bad. Take my advice. You say what you feel. You tell her what you just told me. She is a smart gal, but I think she’ll forgive you anyway.” 

“Were… how do I find her?”

She looked him up and down as she collected her own teacup. “Garden could use a scarecrow. Go out there and make yourself useful.” Her brows lifted as she turned and sauntered out of the kitchen, the soft sound of her footsteps moving up the stairs soon following. 

He finished his coffee and rinsed the cup out, turning it upside down beside the sink and took the woman’s advice. He felt a little silly just standing there amidst the tidy rows of vegetables, his hands in his pockets. Looking around, he could see where leafy stalks of rhubarb were snapped and the ground was packed down. He could guess how that had happened. An hour passed before he saw anyone, and it wasn’t Regina. It was the guards moving in his direction. He was prepared for a fight, but a few dozen yards away they turned and continued on the same general path he’d followed the day before, obviously heading to their posts for the morning. 

He lingered another quarter-hour, his eyes scanning the garden, he spied a furry caterpillar crawling along a leaf. He bent down and let it tickle onto his fingertip, walked it a good ten feet away and set it into the grass where its nibbling could do less harm. He stood straight and watched it crawling. The band of rusty brown was narrow, the black bands at either end thick and fuzzy. A long, hard winter was coming again. He lifted his head and looked across the back half of the property. It was a beautiful bit of land. They were doing well, obviously, and doing good too. He caught movement and though the horse was unfamiliar, the rider was not. 

He waffled only a few seconds before he darted toward the stables. As he had assumed, the stalls were each painted with a card, and his own mount sat behind the six of hearts. He saddled and dressed him quick, sliding up and heading out in pursuit. There was a trail, and he hoped she was following it. He crested a hill and saw her down in the next valley. 

She had removed her hat and held it in her hand as she walked by a stream, her horse nibbling on the tall grass that she wandered through, the lower half of her body lost in the tall wildflowers and foxtail grass, her other hand drifting along the top, the grasses petted with her meandering stroll. He rode down toward her, his tongue trying to thicken, to twist up and everything his brain tried to put forth as an opening line was vetoed almost instantly. 

“Morning.” He managed to croak as he pulled up nearby. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for how I acted.” 

“You’re forgiven, Mr. Marksley.” She said as she looked up at him. What he had missed yesterday he could not now unsee. There was the same look in her eyes that he’d seen in his in that barbershop mirror. Too much sadness. Too much pain for a single year’s worth of living. He must have been staring for a while because she turned her face away nervously. “Is that all?”

“No.’ He slid out of the saddle and moved over to her. Though he ached to hold her, he didn’t. He kept a proper distance. “I was angry at you for not telling me about Junior before. I know you thought you had good reason not to, but I realize it wasn’t the fact that you kept the secret that made me angry. No, not angry, hurt. It hurt me that you thought I would just be alright with you vanishing from my life. Deciding for me that I didn’t want a wife and a family and a real home. You seemed so damn sure I would just be okay if we hit Silver Springs, said our goodbyes and I never got to spend another day with you, just reading or making supper or fighting over who had the needlenose pliers last…” 

“I can’t be selfish. Even if there had been no Junior, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I were some millstone around your neck. You’d be happy for a while, I’m sure, but sooner rather than later, I’d keep finding you standing off and watching the horizon, wishing you could just ride off into the sunset and be free. It’d be selfish and cruel to even think about keeping you. I saw it in my father, and I saw the same thing in you. You’re meant to be a man of greatness. A woman and child? Imagine that, like my mother, I died and our child was still young. You going to go out fighting bandits with a seven-year-old in tow? I have no family, nor do you. What’d happen to our son?” 

He blinked a bit. “Regina… I would … I would become a sheriff or, like your father, an inventor, and I’d raise our son and I’d teach him to shoot and I would never let him go a day without hearing another story of how wonderful his mama was.” 

She shook her head and pushed her hands over her face to clear the tears. “Rex, it’s… it is too late for such talk.” 

“No.” he stepped to intercept her before she could walk away. “This is the perfect time for such talk. I want you to stop thinking I’m like your father.” He snared her hand and held it. “I am not going to run away. I don’t want all or nothing. I want … something. I can’t see why I can’t have it. It’ll be hard, Regina, but why can’t I have a home and a wife and a family and … and still go help people? I know it’s not ideal, but I go, and I come back. Think about it.” He took her other hand in his. “Sailors go out to sea for weeks, and they come home to families and it’s perfectly normal. Railroad engineers may get on a train in Philidelphia on Monday and not return home until they’ve looped around the whole Eastern Seaboard. I love you. I want to make a home with you. I….” He looked around. “I can see you’re not exactly the sort of woman to sit around the house knitting either. You have things you need to do too. Things that are just as important and just as noble as what I do. So… we do our own things when we’re not together, and when we are… we fill every day with a week’s worth of love and happiness. The telegraph is getting so widespread that I can send you a messages all the time. Hey, maybe we can get our own telegraph lines run to our house. Then you won’t even have to go into town to ask for your message.” he smiled teasingly. “And I don’t have to be careful what I say.” He wagged his eyebrows. 

She tried to be serious, but she did chuckle at that. “You’re an ass, Rex.” 

“Well… I do have a room in a bawdy house” He leaned in a bit. “Want to come get a piece of ass?” 

“Stop that!” She giggled and pulled her hands free only long enough to allow that she could slide them around to link behind his neck, her cheek laid to his chest. “I’ve been so miserable without you.” 

He wrapped his arms around her gently, just holding her. “Likewise. I am not proud of my last year, Regina. I never want to keep the truth from you, but I would rather pretend it never happened at all.” 

“I can do that.” She said quietly, soberly. “It never happened.” 

He bent his head and kissed the top of her head. His hands moved up her back to her shoulders, pressing her back a bit as he bent his head and kissed her, gently, softly, careful of her bruised lips. 

The soft kiss melted into longer, deeper ones. The need, the ache that had been like a weight of ice in him was turning to a fiery liquid. He dared, and she seemed to mirror his want. There was no space for talking as all became heated breaths and the snatching of clothing, only half undressed as they tumbled down into the grass and renewed their passions as if it had been no more than a week since they had last tasted one another’s skin. 

Her knee in his grip, her body stretched out on the crushed bed of grass and flowers, her hair a sea of wheat on which her flushed and impassioned face floated. He loved her deep, slowly, not in any rush to end, the feeling of her body and his like a key in a well-oiled lock, made to fit and to unleash all manner of treasure. He turned and drug her astride, her breathless gasps and the moaning of his name were enough to end any semblance of control and he pulled her down against him as his end was met. 

Their return to the house was one of quiet glances and sheepish smiles as if they were going to be caught by her parents or the like. Once the horses were put away, Rex sighed. “We need to talk about things. I mean, you’re happy here, yes?” 

“I’m happier wherever you are, Rex.” A note of worry rose to her eyes and he took her hand, shaking his head. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you. I was thinking about what you said. You need to have access to records and such. You’d do better in a bigger town. You correspond with your madam friend. She sends the girls by train to you, and you send them off on the remainder of their journey with their new name and history. We could build a guest house. They could stay a day or two, maybe even a week. Get used to being addressed by their new name, practice using it? 

She eyed him as he began, but the longer he talked, the more he could see she was in agreement. “It’s a fine idea. I … I think it’s actually a very good idea.” She stepped away and he could see her mind working over things. God how he loved to watch her brain engage. “I will talk to Eula about it.” She moved to go do so, but stopped. “Wait.” A smile brightened her face. “I have something of yours I think you’ll like.” 

“Oh?” His knees were still damp and grass-stained but he was happy to oblige. 

“Wait here.” She walked off and up a staircase. Must be where her room was. She returned in a few moments with an old ammunition box, holding it by the rope sides. “Follow me.” She headed out of the barn and he followed. 

She set it down on a hacked-up stump, obviously used for splitting firewood. “Do you remember the day you left with that native boy?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “I’ll have to tell you about that someday. Abbernathy will for certain make it utterly fantastical, which will make him so happy.” He huffed in mock annoyance. 

“You showed me yours… but I never got to show you mine.” She opened the chest and stepped back in a gesture like a magician at a show. 

He peeked inside and saw a very odd contraption. “Why does this look so familiar?” He lifted it out the tattered white leather glove almost obscured by the layers of copper and brass, metal studs and wires. He remembered it, though only the pieces. This had been what was in the box the day he’d saved her from Junior. “What is it?”

“Put it on.” She helped him tug it down over his hand and then lifted one of the chunks of wood, carrying it out to balance on a fencepost, then scampering back to stand behind him. “Pretend you’re five and playing gunslinger.” She lifted her own hand, index, second, and thumb out, the other two fingers curled in toward her palm. 

Rex did so, and the moment the fingers made contact with the metal plate, he felt a small vibration of sorts all around his wrist and hand. The hairs on his arm began to prickle and a soft, barely audible whine began to rise. 

“Shoot the log.” She motioned. 

He felt a little silly, but aimed and moved his arm like a kid playing cowboys and bandits. “Pew-pew” he actually said aloud, though there was no need. As his hand tipped forward at the wrist, a bolt of what seemed like blue-white lightning flashed across the distance, struck the wood and sent it flying backward off the post. He instinctively jumped back, his hand opening and the feeling of static cling slowly abated as smaller bolts of electricity jumped and flashed between the rivets atop his hand until they’d dissipated completely. 

“I… admittedly have never tried it on a person.” She said with a smirk. “But it’ll turn a charging bull without any lasting damage.” 

He was gobsmacked. He looked from the glove, to her, then back, over and again, unable to believe it. “How does it work? How did you make it? What’s the power source?” He peppered her with questions for an hour it seemed. There was a battery, it stored energy from movement, the contacts made would build the charge like rubbing your stocking feet on a wool rug then touching a doorknob. Only, of course, on a much larger scale. 

“My father left the pieces, well, most of them, but not any idea how to put them together. I … made up a lot as I went along.” 

“Thank you, Regina.” He slid it off and put it back into the box for safekeeping. “I am, as ever, amazed.” He slipped his bare hand into hers and drew her fingers up to his lips. “Come on, let’s go talk to your friend. I want to get to town before sunset.” 

“What for?” she slid her arm through his as they crossed the lawn, the box tucked safely under Rex’s other arm. 

“I’m not going to bed tonight a single man.” He looked over at her. “Do you have any objections this time?”

She shook her head. “Can’t think of any.” Smiling up at him. “But you do still owe me three dollars and fourteen cents from earlier.” He paused and looked down at her in surprise. “Hey… it’s not free until you put a ring on it.” 

He grinned as he scooped her up. “I got your three dollars and a whole lot more.” Growling playfully as she giggled, the screen door slamming behind them as he carried her off and up the stairs to the room he’d abandoned. They could talk to Eula later. They had business to conclude first.


	17. Chapter 17

He kept his word. Though it meant waking the judge, Rex Marksley went to bed with his wife at 11:47PM. The next morning, they left Belltown and traveled north. On the way, Regina sat behind him, arm around his waist, reading him the tale of **Rex Marksley & The Vanished Villain **, which they picked up at the general store before leaving town. At the campfire that night, he relayed the story of Otaktay and the Rattlesnake King, during which she took prodigious notes. No doubt the truth would be wildly misrepresented once Abbernathy got his mitts on it, but he paid well. 

They returned for a while to her father’s old cabin. They wintered there, as they had before, though they’d ample coal in advance so the Iron Horse got a workout clearing the road in and out of Silver Springs. Rex did a few smaller jobs, but mostly he was free to stay home and enjoy the pleasures of being snowed in without the worry that the last time had held. By spring, Rex’s friend came through, and though the patent was in his name, he was exceptionally generous in the contract he signed and both the Iron Horse and the Shoveler made enough the first year he had them working in the East that they had more than enough to fund the home of their dreams by the following spring. 

Between Kansas City and Wichita, they set up a sprawling homestead. There was a workshop where they could each tinker and create, a comfortable home with indoor plumbing of Rex’s design, a guest house for the ladies who came to visit, and land for growing food and keeping those cows and chickens she promised him so long ago. 

Rex’s fame grew, and as a gun-for-hire, he would often have to leave the place in her capable hands. Never was there a moment more fulfilling for either than the moment he rode up the road toward home and they saw one another after being parted. This was their life. They were happy. Four times he returned home to find his wife far bigger than he’d left her. Three daughters survived, though his son was born and died the same night. Though that pain was part of him forever, the joys of his girls running down the lane to greet him was a pleasure he could not ever grow weary of. Eventually, the girls married boys who in no way ever would be good enough, but as they loved them, Rex gave his blessing. 

They lived and worked, fought and loved and did much in the way of good work. Though Regina’s would never be known, in that time Abbernathy penned **’Rex Marksley & The Devil’s Railroad’, ‘Rex Marksley & The Copper Behemoth’, ‘Rex Marksley & The Flying Death Eaters’ ** and Regina’s personal favorite **’Rex Marksley & The Fist of Lightning’ **

It was on Rex’s twenty-fifth summer as a married man that he noticed something amiss as he rode up the long road home. He had been gone for three months, up in the Yukon where a wild beast was terrorizing the mining camps. It was as much a Yeti as he was a can-can dancer, but the man had been a good costume maker and even Rex had to admit it might have worked if he hadn’t been so greedy. There was something wrong, and he knew it even before he saw the girls and his sons-in-law waiting at the house. 

It had been influenza that stole her away. She was buried on the land she had raised a family on. Laid to rest beside their son. Rex wanted nothing more than to be right there with them. The only thing that kept him going was the grandchildren. He spent the next week at home, telling them all stories of their grandma’s selflessness. Of her bravery. Of her beauty. Eventually, the girls had to go back to their home and he was all alone in the house. 

He saw the tell-tale spine of the duplicate copy of Frankenstein that he’d bought her just after they married to replace the one that burned up. He felt a pang of loneliness to think of that first winter they’d spent together. It felt like just yesterday. Thumbling through, a small envelope slid loose and fell to the floor. He picked it up and was surprised to see his name. He opened it nervously and unfolded the letter, pulling the lamp closer as he read. 

_Rex, _

_If you have found this, I beg your forgiveness in advance. I have done something horrible. I had my reasons for doing it, as I have my reasons  
for keeping it from you. In all our years together, only one lie was unspoken. Only one secret kept from you, my love, my life, my everything. _

_When you rode away with the native boy, I was planning to tell you that I was pregnant. I thought ‘it can wait’. Then, Junior took me. For two months I tried to hide it in that room, and I do not think he ever knew. I was free of him, first by law, then by his death, though it is the latter that is the reason for the secret. I know who killed Junior. His father was the head of an organization. A whole family of criminals back east. They found out he was cheating them, and they sent his brother Mario to kill him. Junior, in the end, told them I had stolen the money. They found me. They wanted it back. I showed them I had nothing. Took them to see the ruins of the house. Then to Silver Springs. They talked to people and they seemed to believe my story. I knew that if they found out I was with child, they would think it was Junior’s. I knew from what they talked about that they valued family and blood over almost anything. To think a child of their blood was not in the family's control would be unforgivable. They would do anything to get their hands on the baby if they thought it was Juniors and even if I had told them about you, they might not have believed me. _

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_I couldn’t find you. I looked and I had to leave before I got too obvious. I gave birth alone and was walking with the baby when a couple heading out west gave me a ride. I was so tired, Rex. So lost without you. The woman was a natural mother, she hardly put him down the whole ride. She’d lost three and admitted to me that her husband, to spare her such pain, had given up trying. I had very little money. I had no hope of providing for a child, being an unmarried woman, there was nowhere I could go for help. I left our son with them and slipped away in the night. _

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_I have regretted it every day, but no day so much as the day you found me at Eula’s. I wanted to tell you then, but it would take perhaps years to find him only to take him from a family that loved him? I could not be responsible for such pain. You said then that you did not want to speak of what happened that year. I should have told you anyway. It is my burden to carry that I did not. Perhaps I will burn this and you will never know. It is maybe enough that I have confessed it to this page. _

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_I know very little more than I have confessed. The Walters were kind, clever people, and they were heading for California. I named him Peter, after my father. Beyond that, I chose to remain ignorant. Every day I have lived I have said a silent prayer that he is well. I have imagined he is much like you. An inventive mind and a want to only do good in the world. _

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He sank down and hung his head. Emotions overwhelmed him. Anger fled quickly and in the end, he was left with only deep sadness and regret for what might have been. It was 1892. Peter, wherever he was, would be almost twenty-eight now. No doubt he had a family of his own. Rex was curious but like Regina, he had no wish to upend his life. He threw the letter into the fire and went to bed. 

Within the week, the letters began arriving again. Calls to aid. A hero was needed. He closed the door to the house and rode down the road one last time. Each year, on their anniversary, he returned to lay flowers at the stone, but otherwise, he rode alone, a solitary figure in the prairie sunset, until after the years had turned his hair the color of winter snow, he joined his love at last.

\- The End - 


End file.
